A New Resistance
by Thug-4-Less
Summary: Sometimes the brightest hope comes from the darkest despair.
1. I

Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood marched down the brightly lit corridor, surrounded by his Marine escort and Dr. Ren Huan, and wondered if the week could get any worse. Reach had fallen only days ago and now one of ONI's Special Projects had run into… "unexpected developments". It was these developments that Dr. Huan was explaining to the Admiral as they hurried down the corridor.

"Initially the readings looked just as Hermes, our smart A.I., had projected. Once the device had reached optimal power levels we activated it," Admiral Hood had always liked being briefed by Dr. Huan because the small scientist had a way of briefing him without too much technical jargon or making him feel like an idiot. " A wormhole did open but the tachyon readings were highly abnormal. We sent a probe through and the readings came back were too impossible to believe. We had targeted the device for Alpha Centauri colony and the probe said that all instrumentation read that it was on Earth. But its starchart memory banks indicate Earth as it was over five hundred years ago."

Admiral Hood almost stopped in his tracks at that,"Is that possible, Doctor?"

The Admiral, doctor, and half dozen veteran Marines boarded a freight lift and rode nearly five hundred meters deeper into the crust of Io.

"In theory… anything's possible. If you would have told me about the Covenant's Slipspace capabilities before the war started I, and my professors at university, would have laughed in your face saying it was impossible. I haven't used that word in nearly twenty-seven years. Back to the point… yes, it is possible. Unfortunately the probe was destroyed and so we sent another probe, this time armed, and that was destroyed in the same manner."

The party stepped off the lift and exited into the control room for a cavernous hanger nestled in the center of the moon.

"How were they destroyed?"

"With plasma weaponry."

The Admiral hoped that his voice was neutral as he said, "Covenant?"

Dr. Huan shook his head," I've had a few transfers from Special Weapons R&D take a look at the readings. Covenant plasma is fired in tumbling globules, sometimes self-targeting, while these plasma weapons seemed to be laser-beam cohesive."

"So if it's not the Covenant on this… planet, then who is it?"

"We have intercepted a few encrypted communications and Hermes has identified them as human. Very archaic, which the time differential explains, but human."

The control room's far wall was an observational bubble that the Admiral immediately headed for. All the ratings in the room saluted him as he passed while the scientists were too busy pouring over the data still streaming into the niches each had along the walls. When Hood saw what lay before him on the floor of the hangar he lost the ability to speak for a few moments. He had known about this certain Special Project but actually seeing it come to life was something else.

There seemed to be nothing so much as a hundred meter long, fifteen-meter high arch in the center of the hangar. Through the arch could be seen the rubble of what Hood assumed to be a former urban center. Earth was secure as of six hours ago and that deepened the mystery for him.

"Human, hmm," Hood said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "Was it supposed to be this large?"

"Yes, sir, but we cannot close it. Originally it was thought that all we would have to do was deprive the wormhole of an external energy source, our Engine, but this Gate, as we call it, seems to be self-perpetuating. Hermes believes that we have torn space-time and that, like an organic, body it is slowly healing itself."

"Forgive me for interrupting," a cheerful voice called and a life-sized hologram of a minor Greek god appeared beside Dr. Huan. "It _is_ healing itself. In the last sixteen hours the Gate has shrunk two point three centimeters. It seems to be closing faster the smaller it becomes though we have not computed the exponential quotient as of yet."

"Is the insertion team prepped?" Huan asked, keeping his eyes locked on the visage that could be viewed through the Gate.

"Yes, if you would look directly below you, they are preparing to enter the GateWay now."

Hood looked below them and saw a platoon of ODST's flanking a probe 'bot that looked like a miniature tank.

"Here you are, Admiral," one of the ratings held up a comm-link and Hood took it with a nod.

Hood placed it in his ear, activated it, and placed it on the platoon's command freq," Who am I speaking to?"

"Lieutenant MacAlister, sir," came the rough-voiced reply.

"I've read your file, son, and I have the utmost faith in your abilities. Just remember to not take any offensive action until we have fully ascertained the situation. In the event of attack I want you all back through the GateWay. No sense wasting lives. Am I understood, soldier?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. Go show 'em why they call you HellJumpers."

Hood watched as Lieutenant MacAlister waved his men forward and together they strode towards the Gate. When they passed through it there was no obvious spatial disturbance. It was as if they simply walked from one room to another. There was a moment's hesitation before the platoon began setting up a perimeter and deploying the comm-gear that would boost the faint signals coming through the Gate. Admiral Hood could only wait and watch anxiously for the unknowns, possibly hostile, to make their presence known.

* * *

Lieutenant MacAlister breathed in the air and knew immediately that something was not quite right about it.

"Vihn!" he whispered over the team's com-freq. "Go check out the atmo-read on the 'bot. The air feels funny."

"Yes, sir!" the corporal replied and hustled his way over to the 'bot.

MacAlister was just settling into the shallow trench he had just dug when Vihn broke out over the comm. again.

"Sir! The 'bot says this place is filled with background radiation and minute traces of fall-out from a dirty nuke!"

"Calm down, corporal. What's the rad-count?" MacAlister asked as calmly as he could.

"Uhm, it says that the fatal exposure deadline is two years."

"I'm going to kick your ass, Vihn. You nearly scared the shit out of me!" Lance Corporal Singh snapped, her voice not concealing her amusement.

"Cut the chatter!" Master Sergeant Ivan snapped and his voice was very serious," The comm-gear is up, El-Tee."

MacAlister switched to the command frequency and all hell broke loose.

His only impressions were of brilliant purple-white streaks blasting into the ground only four meters in front of him. Each left a scarlet after-image in his eyes, definitely not Covenant plasma weaponry, effectively blinding him while the firing continued. The air was filled with a high-pitched whining sound that was occasionally interrupted by a low thrum. The Lieutenant thought his entire platoon was going to buy it, he gave little thought to his own person, and he nearly sobbed at the undignified way he was going to die. Then the firing stopped and MacAlister was still alive.

"Sound-off!" he immediately barked after quickly switching to the team-freq even before his vision cleared. All of his team was accounted for and there had been no casualties.

"Drop your weapons or the next volley's up your asses!" a rough voice, seemingly human and female, seemed to come from all around them.

"Can anyone pinpoint that bastard?" MacAlister hissed.

There was a moment of silence before Ivan said," With all due respect sir, I can't see shit."

"Do what she says, Lieutenant," Admiral Hood's voice broke in on the team's frequency.

"You heard the Admiral. Drop 'em." MacAlister was the first to lower his Battle Rifle and sidearm to the ground and slide them away.

Once the entire platoon had followed suit the voice spoke again," I'm sending my dog out. If you fucks hurt him I'm going to personally light your asses up!"

"Her _dog_?" Singh whispered, barely containing a giggle.

"Shut it, Singh, or its latrine duty for a week!" Ivan hissed.

A huge, short-haired mutt suddenly darted from the ruins in front of the Lieutenant. The mutt unhurriedly walked up to him, sniffed his face, and began licking him. His huge head was thrust toward the Lieutenant, accompanied by a plaintive whine, and MacAlister unthinkingly reached up to pat the dog's head. A short woman, with short brown hair, appeared from the same ruins as the dog. She was dressed in rust-colored and granite camo with unfamiliar body armor that looked like segments of alloy woven together. This woman was as dirty as the mutt and seemed just as comfortable with it as the dog.

"You Sci/Tech bastards sure have a lot of-" she stopped as she got a really good look at MacAlister and his team. Then she brought her rifle to bear, it looked like an ancient assault rifle design to MacAlister, and grinned wolfishly. "It looks like someone has a lot of explaining to do."

* * *

Admiral Hood stepped through the Gate, expecting some sense of disorientation, and found it was much like walking through a door. His guard immediately fanned out to provide cover for him when it was obvious, from the apparent effectiveness of these mysterious soldiers, there wasn't any hostile within a hundred kilometers. It seemed that the two groups of infantrymen were having a game of 'show me yours and I'll show you mine'. The Admiral and Dr. Huan walked up behind the MacAlister and the woman as they test-fired each others weapons.

"So what do you think, Lieutenant," the Admiral asked.

"I'm in love. It's light, much lighter than Covie weaponry, and it doesn't splash so you can use it in close-quarters. I-" the Lieutenant turned saw the Admiral and snapped a hasty salute," Officer on deck!"

The Admiral was surprised when everyone, UNSC and the other group, all snapped to attention.

"At ease," he said, returning the salute.

"At ease," someone with a slightly accented voice said from behind him.

The Admiral turned to find a tall, dusky-skinned woman standing behind him with her hands clasped behind her back in a position identical to his own.

"Fleet Admiral Hood, UNSC Naval High Command," he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

The woman took his hand," General Luna, Commander-In-Chief of TechCom, Military Chair of the United Earth Government. "

"Maybe I should be saluting you," Hood grinned as she released his hand.

"Don't," she said, returning his grin," Most of the time I still feel like a Lieutenant. "

* * *

Two hours later, as Hermes briefed General Luna on the Covenant-Human War, Admiral Hood was still reeling from Luna's tale of her dimensions Machine War. Dr. Huan and his team had met with some of TechCom's Sci/Tech Division scientists and they had come up with the theory that the Gate was a doorway into an alternate dimension. General Luna, and his own astrophysicists, had pegged the year in Luna's time as roughly 2049. Luna's humans, it was how he thought of the human race in her dimension, had fought a thirty-year war against an A.I. construct named SkyNet. Hermes had found it incredible that a defense system computer had developed consciousness on its own and had escaped the effects of rampancy. Then once SkyNet's defense system was down in North America TechCom was thrown into war with the Machine-Humans for another twenty years, all while both Machine-Humans and TechCom fought the remnants of SkyNet's machine armies. The Consolidation, what they called the second conflict, was just now dying down all over their world. It amazed Admiral Hood that these humans had not only fought tooth-and-nail from the brink of extinction but that it was almost entirely attributed to one man. This Conner sounded like just the man that the UNSC needed. He would be over sixty by now but Luna had never said anything about the man being dead.

General Luna leaned back in the comfortable chair in Dr. Huan's briefing room back in the ONI installation on Io after Hermes had finished.

"It seems you are in dire straits, amigo," she said, shaking her head. "I wish we could give you more men but we can't. TechCom's forces have been decimated by five decades of fighting. There are less than two thousand veterans of The Machine War _and _The Consolidation. The rest of them, a paltry nine thousand, are recruits from the past ten years who have seen some fighting but not enough to make the kind of soldiers you need. They don't know what it's like to see the twilight of their species not too far away. We knew what we were fighting for during The Machine War and The Consolidation. Survival, plain and simple. Our population, worldwide, is less than ten million. SkyNet's extermination campaigns nearly emptied the Third World and only those people living in remote places probably survived. It could be another five decades before we find any of them. I'm sorry, but we're just not equipped to assist you."

Admiral Hood nodded sadly," I thought as much after your briefing. But there are ways we could help each other. "

Luna grinned," I was hoping you'd say that."

* * *

Three hours later Admiral Hood and General Luna were flying low over the MidWest in the cockpit of a Pelican dropship.

"I've been in planes before," Luna said, grinning like a little girl and not a Commander-In-Chief in her forties," This beats them all. "

Admiral Hood shared her grin," Hold on!"

The Admiral, like a freshman Academy recruit, whooped loudly as he pulled the Pelican's nose up and made a hard-burn for low orbit. General Luna whooped too as they tore through the atmo, the ship bucking and shaking around them, and within minutes they were in zero-gee. General Luna's long black hair floated up around her and her smile seemed as though it would tear her face in half at any moment.

"Now comes the fun part. _This_ is why they call it a dropship."

Then the Admiral dove back towards the planet's surface. Luna screamed the entire way down, from sheer excitement Hood surmised, and was out of breath by the time they had leveled off. Neither of them spoke again until they neared the coordinates Luna had given him. She typed a specific frequency into the dropship's broadcast transponder so they wouldn't be shot out of the sky. Shortly Hood was settling the dropship a hundred meters to the west of a small farming community.

The two quickly disembarked and were immediately mobbed by people dressed in simple clothing who smelled of freshly turned dirt. Surprisingly Luna seemed to know them all and greeted most of them by name.

"Perry, this man wants to meet our friend. Go introduce them," with that said Luna was swept off back towards the dropship to answer the farmers excited questions.

Hood turned to the man Luna had spoken to and nearly swallowed his tongue. This behemoth of a man could have been a Spartan for all Admiral Hood knew. He was brown-skinned but had half his face covered in the most barbaric tattoos, they made the HellJumpers' look like fanciful doodles, and his eyes seemed coldly inhuman. He was older than Luna, maybe closer to fifty, but the way he moved told the Admiral all he needed to know about the man's fitness level.

"Follow me," he said, his voice deep and vaguely threatening.

Hood followed him through the tightly clustered buildings and toward a large one in the center of town. Without a sound a boot came streaking from a doorway into Perry's side. The huge man rolled away from the blow, grunting with the impact, and came to his feet in a combat stance. Perry growled lightly as he charged into the room. The Admiral was no fool and wisely drew his sidearm and stuck to the shadows of a building. The deep-voiced grunts of Perry were punctuated by the higher sounds of someone giving frantic combat shouts of exertion. Then glass shattered and the building shook with Perry's titanic bellow.

"Damnit, Reese!"

Someone was thrown bodily through the doorway. They landed in a heap and one of the most beautiful women that Hood had ever seen stood to her feet. Even the steadily darkening bruise under one green eye did not deter from the young woman's beauty. Her short reddish-brown hair stuck up crazily from her head as she dusted herself off and frowned at the bear-like figure of Perry coming from the doorway.

"That was an antique from Australia, girl! Do you-!"

"You _are _the one that adopted and started training the girl, Perry."

Perry snapped a rigid salute at the stately figure that had snuck up on them all unawares.

"Sorry to wake you, General, but Luna thought you would like to meet-"

"Yes, Admiral Hood, I know all about it. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Admiral?"

* * *

The legendary John Conner sat at an old, scarred coffee table and politely listened to everything the Admiral had to say. Hood took a sip of his lukewarm tea; he had talked that long, before speaking again.

" I don't think I need to spell out our dire situation for a military man of your ability, General. The UNSC could use a man of your tested abilities in the dark times to come. I ask you, no I beg you, please come with me."

Conner stood slowly and walked to the large window facing the plain sweeping out as far as the eye could see. His hands were clasped behind his back and even Hood could feel the tension in his shoulders. Reese, Perry, and Luna sat at the table as well with guarded expressions locked on the man they viewed as their savior.

"I'm sorry, Admiral," Conner began and Hood's heart fell just slightly," I've grown very comfortable living a relatively simple life out here. Call me a coward if you want," he held up a hand to still Perry, Luna and Reese's half-formed protests. " I'm also old. Most of the people of my generation died years ago and I feel like I should end my life here on this earth. Luna told me that you are trading the UEG for their plasma technology and some of SkyNet's old data files. I should thank you for the supplies you are giving us. It will save many lives, but tell me why you require so much manpower? I would have thought with your number of colonies, the number of refugees, you would have a military force just waiting to be activated. "

Admiral Hood cringed," The UNSC has kept the details of the war from the public. All refugees are funneled away from the Inner Colonies so that they don't spread panic. Recruitment for the Marine Corps has leveled off in recent months and there aren't enough reinforcements. Minimal estimates have the Covenant infantry numbering in the hundreds of millions even though we have only seen a fraction of those forces. If it comes down to a war of attrition we will lose. If we can hold on to the Inner Colonies and Earth while we retrofit our Navy and Marine Corps with plasma weaponry then we have a chance."

"It sounds to me like you need to hold them up. Have the Covenant ever shown express interest in one of these… Outer Colonies?" Conner asked, resuming his seat and fixing Hood with a gaze that made him feel as though he was under a laser scalpel.

"Yes. "

"Why?"

"Some kind of artifact. They didn't glass the planet until they had completely explored the area."

"Good. I'd advise you to send teams to your Inner Colonies to search for more of these ruins. If you find them come back to contact me and we can talk more."

"Very good, General," and that was how the Fleet Admiral found himself deferring to a legendary militia leader.

* * *

Five days later Admiral Hood watched the last of the TechCom veterans march through the doorway sized Gate. It would be completely gone in another day or two. ONI teams had discovered ruins buried deep beneath the capital city of Terra Secondus in Alpha Centauri. General Conner had indeed talked to Hood, a great deal, and his proposal had been approved by HighCom despite the protests of that bastard Ackerson.

General Perry, commander-in-chief, of the newly formed UNSC TechCom Militia stood as his five hundred-plus man company got into formation. General Luna was there to give him a send-off on behalf of General Conner and the UEG. The two talked for a moment and then Perry cocked his head to the side. The bellow he uttered could be faintly heard through the observation viewport.

"Damnit, Reese!"

Perry grabbed one of the helmeted TechCom soldiers by the collar and held them off the floor by main strength alone. Luna grabbed his arm and together they set the soldier down. Reese removed her helmet and Hood could clearly see her defiant expression. Admiral Hood made his way, via the lift to the left of the observational window, to the floor of the hangar and approached the quickly escalating conflict. When he got there the soldiers had circled the General and Reese. Admiral Hood stopped beside Luna, who was clutching Reese's helmet, and watched as the two assumed combat stances.

"What's going on?" he asked, just as Reese came forward with a darting jab that Perry calmly blocked.

"Reese wants to come with Perry and join TechCom. Perry wants her to stay with me," she began shouting to be heard over the cheering soldiers," They're fighting to see who gets their way like a couple of kids."

"She _is_ a kid!" Hood shouted to which she just snorted in reply.

The two combatants were a blur of motion that the Navy man was hard-pressed to follow. Finally it ended with a boot to the shin that was quickly followed by a shoulder-throw that ended in a comfortable chokehold. It was only over when Perry slipped into unconsciousness and a bloody Reese rose shakily to her feet.

Luna grinned," You should feel sorry for the Covenant."


	2. II

Sarah "Reese" Perry grinned toothily as the Pelican dropship plummeted through the atmosphere towards Capital City, Terra Secondus. She was dressed in a drab, gray jumpsuit like the rest of the TechCom veterans she had been packed in with. She was also, unlike them all, unarmed. Each carried their own personal weapons, primarily standard plasma rifles and AP50 sidearms, and most slept through the ride as though it were a pleasant jaunt. Sarah really couldn't blame any of them.

The last two days had seen very little rest for Perry and his company. Perry had cajoled UNSC High Command into giving him nearly everything he demanded after only a single six-hour session. Perry and his men, all newly promoted to fit them into the roles they would assume in UNSC TechCom, had then holed up in the Marine quarters of their ride to Alpha Centauri. Sarah had been forced to bunk with Navy ratings and had been left ignorant of their plans. Still, the prospect of setting foot on an alien world was infinitely more exciting than sitting through a plethora of boring meetings. She'd had enough of that during the Consolidation. The roar of the Pelican's thrusters suddenly became more of a low hum and she felt the ship settle down.

"You are free to disembark," the disembodied voice of their pilot, she still had trouble conceptualizing a _human_ flying an aircraft, came into the troop compartment.

The rear ramp lowered and Captain Lucas Black was the first man on his feet. He shouldered his plasma rifle and paused at the top of the ramp.

" Everyone out! " he bellowed, the sound was surprising coming from a short, skeletally thin man.

Sarah was second on her feet and practically charged down the ramp in her enthusiasm. The action elicited a wide grin from the captain, which he quickly stilled, and the others followed at a more sedate pace. Sarah was unaware of any of it as she stood at the edge of the landing pad looking out at a field of blazing blue-green color. Aircraft of all sorts sailed through the air before her and below her. She looked down and gasped in wonder at the buildings that sat hundreds of feet below her. She turned to wave Captain Black over and was once again paralyzed by the sight that lay before her.

It was a city.

Sarah had heard all of her father's stories, even seen a few pictures, but she never imagined anything as magnificent as what she viewed now. Towering structures stabbed their way into the sky, the highest tapering into a delicate looking spiral Sarah knew was probably as wide as the landing pad she now stood on, and now she actually registered the sounds of thousands of vehicles moving about their business on the streets and avenues running through the city like veins in a body. She stood there for several seconds gaping like a fish before Captain Black slapped her on the back.

"Stop staring, Reese, it makes you look like a greenie!" a sergeant called, causing a collective chuckle to pass through the ranks.

"Cut the shit, we've got an appointment to keep," Captain Black said, gesturing to a three-man Marine escort that waited to take them to join the rest of the company," I don't know why I always get picked to bring in the stragglers."

"I didn't straggle, Uncle," Sarah called almost all of the TechCom soldiers her father had brought with him Uncle. She had spent some time, some more considerable than others, with all of them at some point or another.

Captain Black ruffled her hair as they followed the Marines away from the landing pad. The trip was a confusing mixture of sightseeing and hurrying through the brightly lit interiors of buildings. It amazed her how one moment they were walking briskly through a series of corridors and then suddenly they were walking in bright sunlight streaming through immense open courtyards. Vehicles of all sizes, new and shiny, sped through the streets on whispering wheels. There was a sense of rushed urgency that even a stranger like Sarah could feel. Military vehicles, 'Hogs the Marines called them, patrolled the streets and were placed at many of the intersections. Civilians eyed the soldiers walking in their midst with a mixture of hostility and a sort of hopeless anxiety.

_I guess the rumors were true._

Sarah had heard through the Navy ratings that the UNSC had started General Perry's plans for Alpha Centauri. Every child under the age of fifteen, with one adult guardian, was to be evacuated by the end of the month. The remaining citizens were to be transported to Capital City, Bran's Town, or New Cleveland for induction into TechCom. She did not think the civilians would acquiesce quietly. Added to that already fiery mix was the steady influx of refugees the UNSC was funneling to Terra Secondus from the devastated Outer Colonies.

The party entered a large lift on the exterior of an unremarkable building somewhere in the dense center of the city. They exited through the opposite door into the interior. This place was bustling with UNSC military and civilian personnel as well as many of Sarah's "Uncles". She assumed this was to be the temporary de-facto command center for her father in the frantic scramble to prepare the city for war. The Marine corporal that guided the escort led them through a door into a room that had been converted into a temporary barracks.

"These are your quarters. The General wants to see Captain Black and Private Reese now but the rest of you are under orders to get some immediate sac time," the young man, his large brown eyes betrayed his nervousness around the fanatical air of TechCom infantry, told them before stepping to the side.

Reese and Black stowed their gear under their bunks and followed the corporal through the crowded halls, passed rooms caught up in a frenzy of activity, to the Command Center. It was a modest affair with a large bank of powerful computers along one wall, a complex communications center in the direct center of the room, and only half a dozen other high-ranking TechCom and UNSC figures in the room. Four guards flanked the entryway to the room, while a fixed plasma turret was placed directly across from it, to show that General Perry was as paranoid as he had ever been during the Machine War.

"I'm glad you're here, Black," General Perry said, clapping a massive hand on the slimmer man's shoulder," You too, Reese. I need some more friendly faces around here. These UNSC Marines, tough as they are, still want to treat their civilians like sheep. You've always been better at explaining things to non-believers, Captain, and I need you to tell the Major here why we're going to disclose everything to the civilian population right now."

Captain Black fixed Major Burns and his subordinate Captains with a steely gaze," I am going to repeat these events as they were reported to me. When the missiles first fell on Judgment Day, there was worldwide hysteria. No one knew who had committed the first strike and the U.S. was so devastated it was offering no response. Other governments were well aware what had happened and deemed it unwise to create widespread panic by informing their civilian populations. So when bombs fell throughout the remaining free world no one knew the cause, as SkyNet easily eliminated most government leadership. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, died in those countries in the years to come because no one knew whom the enemy was. The military was decimated and there was little to no coordinated leadership among the scant resistance that sprung up when the Machines starting their campaign of genocide. If the governments of those countries affected little by the initial attack had just begun to prepare their civilians for the inevitable, they might have had a chance at holding off the Machines. There may have been riots, there may have been deaths, but it would have paled in comparison to the results of keeping a secret that should not, could not, be kept. So we are going to warn these civilians because if the Covenant come tomorrow and we all die, at least those poor bastards will know they have a chance."

Major Burns and his subordinates had wilted under the burning gaze of Black and the two Perry's. They could only straighten their spines and nod as though the decision had been theirs to make in the first place. Sarah had to hide her smile by turning to view the communications center. It was a much more sophisticated affair than normal TechCom Comm-Centers. General Perry went to stand at a blank wall with a podium in front of it. The podium was covered with an official UNSC covering. A holograph of the 'smart' A.I. Conner, which had been quickly created off of the famed General's brainwave patterns just a day ago, appeared atop the communications gear.

"We are ready to broadcast on your signal, General Perry," the holograph informed him.

General Perry nodded and began to speak.

"Hello, Terra Secondus, I am General Justin Perry, commander of the newly created UNSC TechCom Militia. As you are well aware, we are evacuating children under fifteen along with their adult guardian to Earth. You may not know that the reason we are doing this is because the Covenant is coming. We have confirmed intelligence that they have discovered the location of Terra Secondus and are on their way. Do not panic. They will not glass this planet, or at least the cities we are evacuating everyone to, because they want what we have. There are relics, buried deep beneath the surface, of an ancient race the Covenant desperately want and they will not risk destroying them. The UNSC cannot afford to send a massive military force to protect Terra Secondus because of this system's proximity to Earth. As of twenty-eight hundred hours at the first of the month the entire remaining population of Terra Secondus will be a part of the Resistance. All able-bodied Resistance members will be indoctrinated into TechCom. Make no mistake citizens. There are only two choices remaining to you. Fight or die. Some of you might be pacifists, some may believe the Covenant is merely protecting their territory from human expansion, and some may think you can flee to Earth. The Covenant is committed to nothing more than the extermination of the entire human race. They will never stop unless _we_ stop them. Earth will fall unless _we_, as a united people, stop them here and now. You may ask yourself how you can stop them when civilians are forbidden military weaponry," General Perry smiled then," But Resistance personnel are allowed military weaponry and more. We are transmitting documents that will help each of you find roles in the Resistance. To teach you how to become effective guerilla warriors. You will be organized into Companies by residential blocks and your designations will also be transmitted to your personal terminals. Veteran TechCom fighters will be visiting each of your residential blocks for a few days to further your training and assess your progression. I will also be making these rounds, as will UNSC Marine officers, to show you that we are all committed to kicking Covie ass back to whatever pit they crawled out of. I vow today to not set foot off of Terra Secondus until the last Covenant on this planet is either dead or running with their tails between their legs. Together we can win, we _will_ win, I know this in my heart. Some of my compatriots would have me believe that the citizens of the UNSC are cowards who would panic in the face of humanities enemies. I laugh at this notion. I have walked among Terra Secondus' people and I know the courage you all possess inside. But to bolster that courage I will give you a demonstration of the Resistance's resources. Rifle!"

Captain Black tossed the General his rifle. Perry pivoted to face the armor-reinforced dummy of a Covenant Elite and fired the rifle on full auto. The searing plasma bolts slashed through the air accompanied by a thrumming sound that was both low and high-pitched. Once the battery-clip was drained the General lowered his rifle and the UNSC officers, who had never seen a plasma rifle in action before, gaped in shock at the dummy. It had been reduced to a pile of molten slag that still glowed a dull reddish color. The General pivoted back to podium, rifle held at left arms, and grinned devilishly.

"I say let them come."

* * *

Two weeks later, Sarah was watching two hundred men and women going through the obstacle course they had erected in their apartment complex's gym, following the instructions Conner had transmitted, and was in awe of how well her adopted father could read people. There had been little rioting, only two incidents that she was aware of, and almost everyone had been galvanized in their new purpose. This was the group number twenty for her and her UNSC compatriot, Corporal Trevors. Each time they had been impressed by the self-motivation each "Company" had possessed. Most of them had already begun cutting down armored doorways and the like in order to create homemade body armor along TechCom lines as well as trying to create their own homemade explosives. Some of the results had been more successful than others but it was the effort that impressed both Sarah and Trevors.

"I heard you pair could use some weapons to give to your rookies," came a familiar, at least to Sarah, voice from behind them.

Sarah turned to regard a short, slender woman with hard dark brown eyes and head covered in gel-stiffened black hair. Most people couldn't sneak up on Sarah, but the 'X-Terminator' was the second most legendary Intel operative after Catherine Luna. It was said she could sneak up on you in broad daylight in the middle of a concrete lot. Sarah, having known the diminutive soldier for a long time, knew the claim was not that far from the truth.

"Hey, Sanchez, you still getting your thrills sneaking up on people," Sarah said, trying to impersonate her father's tone.

Sanchez laughed," Fuck you, Reese."

"You said something about weapons?" Trevors asked, an eager light in his eyes.

"You UNSC boys sure would like your own plasma rifles, huh?" Sanchez grinned, stepping up to look through the observation window at the future guerillas intense training.

"You have no idea," Sarah said, rolling her eyes dramatically.

"Follow me then."

* * *

A few minutes later Sarah and Trevors, with their training company behind them, stood in front of Sci/Tech Lieutenant Sanchez. The Lieutenant stood in front of several, large supply crates and behind a long table with a number of vaguely familiar weapons placed on it. Two burly men flanked the table. The two had set up a number of targets at the far end of the gym for her crew to demonstrate on.

"This," Sanchez said, hefting a slightly larger version of a standard TechCom plasma rifle," -is a phased plasma rifle in the forty kilowatt," Sarah's eyebrows rose at that,"-range. The scope has a maximum magnification of five times and can be set in automode. Magazine charge is one hundred bolts."

Sanchez tossed the weapon to the man on her left and he snatched it deftly from the air. The man silently stepped to the firing line, knelt, brought the rifle to his shoulder, and snapped off a quick shot. A blinding purple-white bolt erupted from the muzzle of the weapon and vaporized the entire torso of an Elite target.

Sanchze was speaking before he could replace the weapon on the table, this time hefting up a monster of a sidearm," This is a DAF Sidearm. DAF stands for Dual Auto-Fire. The upper barrel fires plasma bolts in the forty-watt range while the lower barrel fires ten millimeter, hi-explosive, heavy armor piercing rounds. Both barrels are capable of fully automatic fire. The charger for the upper barrel allows forty shots and the over-sized clip carries twenty rounds."

Sanchez tossed this weapon to her left and this man went to a cluster of Grunt targets. He assumed a classic pistol firing stance, feet braced to the sides, pistol gripped in both hands, and left loose on full auto-fire to completely render his stance useless. A blur of plasma bolts, not nearly so brilliant as the plasma rifle, peppered the grouping. Once the charge ran dry the weapon switched to ballistic rounds almost instantaneously. It sounded like muted thunder in the confines of the gymnasium and the targets, already rendered fragile by the plasma bolts, practically blew apart under the new assault.

"This," she picked up a weapon that vaguely resembled the plasma rifle but the barrel was practically non-existent and there was some sort of device slung under the shortened barrel. " -is a plasma carbine. It fires bolts identical to the plasma rifle but with the added advantage of having a plasma grenade launcher slung under-barrel. It has a scope that is also identical to the plasma rifle's."

Man On The Right took this one and leveled it at a pair of Jackal targets that even had thin armored shields in front of them to mimic their personal energy shields. This weapon produced a high-pitched shrieking sound as it fired but the results were impressive as it ate through the shields in less than a second. Then he stopped firing, took a bracing stance, and a small metallic sphere was launched from the carbine. Sarah thought she heard it hit the floor a millisecond before a purple-white sphere expanded to life to completely vaporize the targets. There was nothing left but a blackened circle when the sphere faded.

"Grenades also can be thrown." Sanchez added before gesturing for the larger of the two men to pick up the huge gun sitting on the floor beside the table.

This weapon had a barrel that was probably as long as one of Sanchez's legs and its body was as thick as her torso. It amazed Sarah that the man could pick it up so easily.

" This beauty is a light anti-cavalry plasma gun. It only weighs fifty kilos, don't ask how that's possible, and is normally supported by a complex rigging system. This weapon fires plasma bolts in the seventy-five to ninety kilowatt range and has a magazine charge of four hundred shots."

The demonstrator leveled the weapon at the Ghost target and let loose. It was like the plasma rifle firing but with the bass turned way up. Within seconds the target was molten slag rapidly cooling on the floor.

"Finally we have the plasma blade," Sanchez picked up a handle about a foot long and whipped it out before her. It telescoped out to a three-foot long rod that was similar to the plasma baton Sarah had used in sparring back home. Sanchez flicked a switch and the blade was completely enveloped in crackling plasma energy. "The plasma is only a millimeter thick but it burns much hotter than a typical plasma torch. The blade can be set to give off only a stunning charge but when set to full combat mode well- watch."

Sanchez stepped up to a target of an Elite wielding its own plasma blade and whipped her weapon through its torso. The blade passed cleanly through and the Elite's torso slid to the floor with a glowing line of metal along the cut.

"Well, now we teach you pups how to use these wonderful toys."

Sarah, Trevors, and their training company all grinned like kids in a candy store.

* * *

Nearly a month passed before the Covenant came and General Perry used it all to his advantage. He organized the Companies in Capital City and helped the commanders in the other cities to do the same. He had emergency fallback points for each individual company when the Covenant showed their faces. Sanchez and her Sci/Tech team, along with hundreds of civilians, were set up deep within Capital City's underground maze manufacturing weapons. Sarah and Trevors, along with scores of other training pairs, made the rounds to forge the civilians into TechCom soldiers. They had made good progress and everyone could feel it. So when the Covenant finally showed their faces no one panicked and that was a wondrous thing. 


	3. III

The squad exited a pair of lifts in one of the many skyscrapers lining an open area that was easily a kilometer long in the western quadrant of the city. Thunder, the thunder of large-bore anti-aircraft artillery, shook the building but the squad was used to such an effect after nearly two days of the almost constant firing of the guns. They quickly moved through the building, guided by the schematics in their wrist-com's, and set up positions in several offices facing out into the open area. A long avenue ran right to the edge of this portion of the city, ending at an observation platform that gave an expansive view of the hundred-story drop below, and would have made a perfect dropzone for Covenant dropships. Complicating that possibility was the presence of a ring of AA emplacements and scavenged Naval vessel autocannons. They, along with the orbital MAC cannons, had played havoc with the Covenant assault. The delaying tactics had given time for most, if not all, of the TechCom forces in Capital city to go to ground. Now was the time to really bring the fight to the Covenant.

Corporal Sarah "Reese" Perry led her three-man turret crew to the center window of their appointed office. She, the smallest member of her team, was responsible for lugging the supports for their squad's plasma turret. She set up the supports, a titanium-A reinforced tripod, while Private Vance set up the fusion batteries, and Private Rogers began quickly assembling the turret itself. Both of her subordinates were huge men, it was almost a requirement for a turret team, and towered over her. Vance was a black man with a shaven head that reminded her of her father with his militaristic attitude toward life. Rogers on the other hand reminded her of Luna with his teasing attitude, usually at Vance's expense. Rogers looked at her with his wide green eyes and ran a hair through his short-cropped brown hair.

"How long do you think it will be?" he asked, a little nervously.

"If you want to be a better soldier then you'd better learn some patience, Rogers," Vance said, slipping the cylindrical body of the turret onto the support top.

"Well," Rogers said as he connected the power supply," They did use to call me the minute man in high school."

"I guess that's why you're not the gunner, huh?" Reese teased, making sure the tripod was securely planted in the floor," You'd start shooting the minute you saw the pink… of a Grunt's eyes you pervert!"

Vance grunted, which he did whenever he was restraining what he thought of as inappropriate laughter, and began affixing the targeting computer and firing studs to the turret. Within a minute of their arrival they had a large, and lethal, plasma turret assembled in position between two desks. A flexible plate of highly heat reflective plating gave the gunner some, but not much, protection. It was a highly dangerous position but the turret could be operated remotely in case the situation was too dangerous. This time though Reese was going to fire the thing manually. She took her place in front of the firing studs, her eyes locked on the targeting screen slightly below eye level, and made a few passes to the left and right. Her crew did good work.

Sergeant Red, their squad leader, came into the office quietly. Reese nodded companionably to him and he returned the nod. The pale-skinned man studied their position with his shrewd light brown eyes before leaving with a satisfactory wink in Reese's direction.

"Hey, Reese, what's the deal with the Sarge, anyway?" Rogers said, settling back in a comfortable looking desk chair," I know me and Vance have only been with the squad for a couple days. Hell, most of the squad's been with the squad for a couple days, but everyone says you and the Sarge know each other. So we was all wondering why the hell he only talks when he can't avoid it. I've only heard his voice over comm's and even then it was… short."

Reese shrugged, settling her back against the turret," I have no idea. He's a Canadian?"

Rogers laughed at that and shook his head before falling into one of his rare silences. Vance kept a vigil by the window with the middle fingers of both hands tapping lightly against the pair of DAF's holstered on his thighs. It took Reese a minute to get comfortable in the body armor they were all forced to wear. It was light, with heat resistant polymers on the outer surfaces, and threaded with Titanium-A but it still felt restricting. Reese retreated into herself, seeking that stoic calm that her father was always trying to impart on her, and drifted in a state of restful semi-consciousness.

Sooner than she had expected the sounds of the closest auto-cannon fire stopped amid the sounds of explosions. That was the signal and no one needed Sergeant Red to propel them up and into their positions. Which meant only that Reese stretched lazily and stood to take her place in front of the flatscreen display of her plasma turret. Far off in the distance she could see thin trails of smoke climbing into the sky. It was where several auto-cannons had apparently misfired. Leaving a narrow channel, only a couple dozen meters really, free of anti-aircraft fire. The response was almost instantaneous. Banshees shrieked towards the open sector and hammered the already destroyed AA cannons with a barrage of plasma and fuel rod cannon fire. Behind them swarmed what looked like an entire flotilla of dropships.

_The bastards must have been circling; waiting for a break-in,_ Reese thought grimly, wiping her suddenly moist hands on her leg.

On and on they came even after the first of the U-shaped dropships touched down almost directly below Reese's position. It disgorged a squad of Covenant soldiers, one Elite, two Jackals, and a collection of Grunts. That seemed to be the majority of the dropshps make-up though a few of the larger varieties carried Hunters and the recently discovered Brutes. The forward dropships had to remain on the ground while their comrades continued to pour into the gap in the UNSC's defenses. Each squad began to move independently to form a series of overlapping perimeters around the safety of the dropships heavy plasma turrets. Reese could only shake her head. Her father would have ordered every squad to double-time it into the close confines of the buildings just in case of an ambush.

Much like the one they were planning.

"Okay, everyone, remember your target priority," came the Sarge's soft, melodic voice, " Turrets on the Hunters and Brutes first if they're in range. JackHammers on the dropships. Heavy gunners on the Elites. The rest of you I want volley fire on those grunts. Save the grenades unless you see a big grouping. It won't be long now."

Reese brought the targeting reticle on her screen to center on the chest of a Brute that seemed to be directing several squads. She tracked his movement as smoothly as if she knew where he was moving before he moved. All she was waiting for was the signal.

Just as the dropship below her began moving back to make it's exit a trio of brilliant plumes of plasma lanced their way into the sky. A blinding barrage of plasma fire almost immediately obliterated the encroaching Banshees. Reese and the TechCom soldiers, outfitted with visors specifically designed to null the blinding after-image effect of TechCom plasma weaponry, opened fire. Windows were broken with sonic hammers in every building along the avenue. The contrails of rockets launching blasted through the windows almost before the glass was broken. Multiple rockets, fitted with plasma warheads, enveloped each of the dropships in the killzone regardless of if they were airborne or not. Then everyone else opened up and all hell broke loose among the Covenant ranks.

Reese thumbed the firing stud of her plasma turret and a tight, grim little smile played with the corners of her mouth. The Brute she had first sight on disappeared from the waist up as plasma bolts in the hundred to one hundred and fifty kilowatt range blasted the area all around him. The plasma turret had a cyclic barrel to cut down on overheating but Reese still had to fire in short bursts to prevent the weapon from going into auto-cool mode. The volume of plasma fire pouring out of the surrounding buildings was staggering. Heavy gunners and turret crews pouring so much fire into the higher priority targets that nearly all of them were dead or dying within thirty seconds of the first volley. The remaining Covenant soldiers scurried about in the vain hope of seeking cover but were cut down by plasma rifle and carbine fire. Then, once the leadership castes were dead and the Hunters cooked, the heavy weapons hosed up and down the avenue. Reese herself accounted for three Hunters, five Brutes, and at least a dozen Elites before charring dozens of Jackals and Grunts. Some of the smarter grunts tried to duck down sidestreets only to be gunned down by the heavy gunners stationed in the alleys surrounding the killzone.

TechCom was not without losses themselves. Many of the Hunters managed to fire off their fuel rod cannons before they died as well as those Grunts that wielded smaller cannons. Most impacted harmlessly among the buildings but Reese saw at least three impact directly on locations where concentrations of UNSC plasma fire was pouring from. The thought that it could happen to her honestly never occurred to Reese as she relentlessly mowed down the alien bastards.

Then there was no more return fire.

Reese stopped firing and gradually so did everyone else.

* * *

The next day an exhausted Reese joined her father in his Command Center deep within the city. It was almost an exact replica of every TechCom HQ she had been in. Her father stood watching video feed from what he had rightly assumed the Covenant leadership would pick as a Command Center. The orbital MAC cannons had fallen only a few hours after the ambush that had claimed nearly four thousand Covenant lives. Then the AA weaponry had been destroyed by pinpoint blasts of Covenant Naval firepower. Estimates had it that nearly a million Covenant troops had already landed and thousands more were coming to join the party. By far the greatest concentration was around the tallest spire, the one Reese had noticed upon her arrival in the city, and some kind of floating platform had been erected above it. Intel operatives said that there were at least three hundred thousand Covenant in the single building alone. Reese had scoffed at that report but after seeing the monstrous proportions of the building she couldn't disagree. Added to that the thousands more camped in adjacent buildings to protect these obviously important figures made it an extremely high priority objective.

"Are you sure you want to do this, General?" Reese said, drawing raised eyebrows from the UNSC officers who were unused to their commanding officer being asked such a question by a non-com, even if it was his adopted daughter.

Perry turned to regard his soot-faced, tough as nails daughter and smiled sadly," It's necessary. They have to see and understand. This will show them our resolve. Suck away the morale of the lower castes. It pains me too, Corporal, but this is war. "

Perry nodded to a Sci/Tech Sergeant and turned to watch a monitor that showed a panoramic view of the spire.

* * *

Many in the Covenant caste that were the Prophets had long since regarded the humans as savages that would go to nearly any extreme in their desperate struggle to survive. But they also had come to understand the flaw that was human compassion and a cultural affinity to view their places as somehow holy. It was one of the many things that made them blasphemous. So it was with some surprise that the Prophets discovered yet another facet of humanity. When humans could be drawn beyond compassion into a realm where no step was too far.

A tactical nuclear weapon was detonated in the midst of Capital City which killed the Prophet Council sent to recover the Forerunner relics and over four hundred thousand of the lesser races.


	4. IV

Reese lay on her belly inside the twisted steel skeleton of, well she really had no idea what it had once been, and viewed the remote flatscreen display on her wrist-com. It showed a staticky view of a narrow street a few kilometers from the western edge of the city. The sun was just beginning to set and it cast a soft golden glow over the area because the buildings in this quadrant were fairly low. A Covenant patrol was making their way quickly towards one of the fortresses they had set up all over the city. The numerous bases never numbered more than three hundred Covenant troopers of mixed races while the new Covenant Command Center was a squat building in the center of a relatively level space in the city. This time the area had been scoured over time and time again before the leadership caste had moved in. Captain Black and his Special Forces unit were still trying to find a way to assault the enemy HQ but with two hundred thousand veteran Covenant warriors crawling all over the place it was proving more and more unlikely.

But that situation was not Reese's problem. Eliminating this Covenant patrol, part of the assault force that had taken out the 152nd and 163rd, was.

Reese sighted on the left of a staggered line of Grunts near the middle of the patrol. A purple-white bolt cut through the golden light of sunset to slag the red armored Elite's face. Predictably the Jackal's and Grunt's that made up the rest of the patrol panicked and started firing in all directions. Reese remotely let loose with her plasma turret, which was set in a precarious position two-story's above her head, and the street was filled with searing plasma death. Within seconds there was not a living Covenant body left in the street.

The screech of an approaching pair of Banshees made Reese instinctively flatten even more in her hide.

"I hate losing our baby," Vance said, growling slightly as the Banshee's made their run and obliterated the turret.

A dropship descended suddenly and deposited an elite squad of Elites and Brutes who immediately began fanning out in a fairly standard search-and-destroy pattern.

"Banshee's pegged," Red said," Light 'em up."

Reese grimly thumbed the safety off of her plasma carbine and heard the quiet whines of her men powering up their rifles. A Brute and three Elites were rushing towards their position, below the destroyed plasma turret, and they were armed to the teeth. The three TechCom soldiers had a good defensible position but it would be a death trap if the Brute started opening fire with the highly explosive rounds his weapon fired. The ugly bastard would have to go first. Reese placed her eye up to the weapons inset scope and brought the crosshairs at a place just slightly in front of the Brute's feet. Reese fingered the firing stud for the grenade launcher and slowly let out a breath.

Reese fired the grenade and a second later the Brute disappeared in an expanding sphere of electric plasma. Vance and Rogers quickly opened up with their plasma rifles to pick off the Elites. An Elite bearing a shoulder mounted fuel rod cannon popped out from behind cover fifty meters from their position but a plasma bolt hit the cannon and caused it to explode spectacularly. The street quickly became filled with the strobe-like effect of plasma fire as half a dozen separate firefights broke out. The Banshees came roaring back in and one of them took a direct hit from a rocket. It tumbled out of the air to shower the area with debris after colliding with a building. Banshee Two, the tagged Banshee Reese assumed, was hit by a trio of plasma bolts but was not destroyed. It was out of the fight though and it began limping back towards its hidden base.

"Let's get moving. I feel like a sitting duck," Reese told her men, rolling onto her back to began easing her way out of their hole.

By the time they had emerged, the ambush was over, and every Covenant soldier's body had been accounted for. Sergeant Red was striding towards them as they stood up and he had the entire squad at his back. To a Covenant soldier they would have all looked the same, especially with their helmets covering everything but their chins, but to a TechCom soldier the gear each soldier wore was enough to identify their rank if not their identity. The Sarge signaled for them to return to their temporary barracks, the basement of an old warehouse as usual, and the squad filed out in their usual marching order. Reese and her crew cast one longing look at their ruined plasma turret before assuming their place in the squad's spread out marching formation. Sergeant Red had requisitioned a new plasma turret for the squad but who knew when they would get it. Reese had no idea where her own father was let alone where one of the precious weapons factories was hidden.

They moved like shadows, sticking close to the buildings, weaving in and out of debris-laden streets. TechCom's standard armor and camo gear were all shades of dark gray that blended well with their environment. It was almost partially thermally shielded. Despite their gear and their training, tension was always thick when they were moving through neutral zones where neither TechCom nor the Covenant held dominion. Several squads had just... disappeared over the last week only to later be discovered dismembered right on the perimeter of some of TechCom's sub-level bases. Counterstrikes were a constant give and take between the two forces but at least TechCom was much better at it. It was small consolation against the fact that _their_ squad could be ambushed at anytime.

Reese was crawling her way over a mound of rubble that had once been the outside wall of a building when an explosion in the general direction the Banshee had taken off in shook the deepening night. Orange-red light, reflected from the explosion no doubt, made the building faces to the north glow. Then the sound that no TechCom soldier ever wanted to hear sliced through the brief silence following the explosion. The eerie whine of Wraith mortar fire was suddenly cut off by the sound of their thunderous impact. This time the buildings were awash with a spectral purple-white glow. Then the sounds and lights of a firefight broke out in that section of the city. Plasma bolts speared their way into the sky and around buildings as half a dozen Banshees appeared out of nowhere. The Wraith tanks continued to fire even after the impacts of what sounded like half a dozen rockets.

"Hunker down," Sergeant Red ordered, sounding slightly distracted.

Reese's men joined her atop the pile of rubble and waited for their Sergeant. Captain Inman had gathered several platoons to launch a strike on the hidden base that had been taking a too heavy toll on their men. It sounded like they had encountered more resistance than they had expected.

"Alright, corporals, you two have qualified on combat driving. So you get this wonderful job. The Captain's assault force has run into a bit of a snag. The Covenant dropped a pair of Wraith tanks inside a ramp leading to a sewer access tunnel. It'll be a little longer before they can break through and clean out the nest. Unfortunately they don't have much time. A reaction force of Ghosts is heading in that direction now. I'm going to need you to take three men each, take a couple of MPV's, and slag those Ghosts. I'm transmitting the coordinates of a vehicle depot now. Hurry."

"Yes, Sarge," Reese and Corporal Higg answered in unison.

Reese quickly explained the situation to her two men before asking," Who'll be our fourth?"

"Kinh," they both answered without hesitation.

"She's good with a stationary heavy plasma gun," Vance added, with a nod from Rogers.

"Plus," Rogers grinned, "She's just crazy enough to enjoy a ride with 'Sky-High' Reese."

"Shut up, Rogers," Reese said, quickly patching into Private Kinh's wrist-com. "Double-time it to my location, Private. We have orders."

"On my way," came the soft voice.

Private Kinh reached them just as Corporal Higg contacted Reese," My team's ready. What's your stat?"

"Good to go," Reese replied," Lead the way, Corporal."

Reese turned to her two regular team members," Fill Kinh in on the way."

Corporal Higg and his three-soldier team briefly appeared beneath them before skittering away like shadowy insects. Reese was the first to slither down the mound of rubble and was followed by Vance, Kinh, and then Rogers. Corporal Higg's team led Reese and her men across the street into a series of relatively intact alleyways. The entire time they jogged, sprinted, and ducked behind cover the sounds of battle echoed through the area. Occasionally stray comm bursts overloaded their wrist-com's and a soldier's voice would shout in Reese's ear. It was an unavoidable consequence of the relatively low-tech transmission techniques TechCom communication gear used.

Reese and her men caught up with Higg's team just as they disappeared down a partially hidden stairwell behind a purposefully created debris mound. The eight soldiers moved down the narrow stairwell in single file. Higg's rapped out a code on the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell. A voice demanded an authorization code and Higg's began reciting the squad's alpha authorization code. Reese knew that if a number was recited wrong, then the mines planted along the entire length of the stairwell would be detonated.

Fortunately the door opened up after Higg's was done and they entered into what had once been a small auto shop. The first sight that greeted Reese was the barrel of a stationary plasma turret. Once through the door, past the two heavy gunners flanking the doorway, two massive Multi-Purpose Vehicles dominated the dimly lit room. Reese had no clue as to what the MPV's had been used for before the war but now they were a part of TechCom cavalry. The pair of MPV's was virtually identical. There was a long and high passenger compartment and the cab was completely closed inside armored plates. Armored plates covered every surface of the vehicles in fact and gave them a spit-and-hope feel. It was fairly representative of TechCom's philosophy. Two men in greasy overalls appeared from a bright square in the floor on the opposite side of the room and headed for them.

Reese stood beside Higg's as the apparent senior man started talking.

"What do you need, Corporals?" he asked, although he had to know why a pair of corporal's, three soldiers apiece, was knocking on his door.

"We need to requisition those MPV's," Higg's told him, nodding at the vehicles.

"I shoulda known. Who gave the orders?"

"The Captain," Reese said," We don't have time for talkin'. Are they ready?"

The grease monkey frowned at her," Yeah, they're as ready as I can get 'em. Be careful goin' out. There'll be a damn near ninety-degree turn right at the end to avoid the mound we dropped to cover up the ramp. Let's get back to work, Vinsen."

The two mechanics disappeared back down their hole without another word or glance at the soldiers. Higg's team had already taken possession of one of the MPV's and Reese's team wasted little time in climbing into theirs. Reese opened the door, placed a foot in the metal booster, and hauled herself up into the cab. Kinh scrambled into the seat beside her and began assembling the stationary heavy gun in the hollowed out space in front of her. Reese heard the rear door of the passenger compartment slid down with a thud that shook the entire vehicle.

"Rear entry's secure," Vance said, amid the sounds of heavy exertion by the men.

The two men were quickly prepping the stationary plasma turret that was centered squarely atop an axial platform in the rear compartment. The platforms allowed the turret to cover both sides of the vehicle via long slots that could be slid open as well as rise in order to provide anti-air fire through the roof. Rogers would be man the turret while Vance would cover their rear with a stationary heavy gun like Kinh. Her selected team knew their jobs well. Reese stared at the plethora of machinery in front of her for a moment before her hands flew into dizzying action. A small view slit in the heavy armor plating was the only way to see out of the cab. Once a firefight started Reese couldn't risk plasma splashing into her eyes through the view slit so she would have to slide and lock a thick armor plate over it. Then she would rely on a rough sonar sketch of her surroundings, as well as external camera feeds, and that was not something many soldiers had proven very adept at yet. Her pre-ignition tests were done quickly and seconds later Kinh slipped the cylindrical clip into the heavy plasma gun and slid back the locking bolt.

"We're ready on your word, Reese." Rogers told her over their comm.-link.

"Higgins here. Ready to go on your word."

Reese thumbed the ignition switch and grinned tightly," Let's go."


	5. V

"Hang on!" Reese shouted into her mic, slamming the brakes, twisting the control yoke, and nearly overturning the MPV as they neared the debris blocking the main access ramp to the parking garage.

Metal groaned and the left side of the vehicle actually left the ground for a brief second before slamming back to the ground. Reese gunned the accelerator and the ponderous vehicle roared its way up the curving ramp.

"Slow it down, Reese, we want to get there in one piece," Higg's called over the comm..

"We're late to the party, Higg's, so I think _you_ should move that big chunk of shit," Reese replied tersely just before hitting the top of the ramp and briefly becoming airborne.

The vehicle, back heavy because of the plasma turret, bounced on its rear tires first and then nearly made Reese's helmet collide with the armor plate in front of her.

"Now I know why they call you 'Sky-High'," Kinh mumbled shakily.

Reese grinned, executed a perfect power slide, and gunned the accelerator again. She was headed in the general vicinity of the firefight, it was easy to tell from the light display the Captain's assault force was putting on, and Reese knew the Captain would be contacting her momentarily.

"Corporals," the Captain's voice came over their comm's right on time," I'm transmitting an intercept route for the reaction force. The 160th managed to slow them down but they're on dropship duty now. We've got all kinds of hell coming down on us. You two are on your own with the reaction force. At last count it was over a dozen. Their ETA on our position is six minutes. We'll be sitting ducks for a strafing run. Good luck."

One of the flatscreen displays slightly beneath her flared to life with an overhead map of the area. A ghostly white light was their intercept route and it was a scraggly mess.

"You heard that Higg's. Six minutes. You'd better keep up."

"Just move it, Reese."

* * *

Reese broke suddenly and cut to the right down a narrower street. She barreled down that at full speed, barely eighty kilometers per hour, before power-sliding into a right turn. Then it was around a slight sloping turn that deposited them on a wide thoroughfare. TechCom had littered this, purposefully, with wrecked Covenant and TechCom vehicles and machinery as well as plasma mines. The two MPV's had to trust that the route the Captain had given them was safe. Once Reese's MPV was through she let out a small sigh of relief. Kinh, unable to see anything beyond the limited view through the firing slot for her gun, white-knuckled her way through the ride. Both Vance and Rogers grumbled companionably about their fume-crazed psycho of a turret team leader. Meanwhilte Higg's entire team, all patched into the view from his helmet cam, were all fairly reeking from gallons of cold sweat as Higg's desperately tried to keep up with Reese.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of driving where they couldn't go fast enough, they made contact. Reese's MPV powered up an off-ramp and rammed a Ghost off a steep drop back down to the freeway.

"Contact!" Reese shouted into her comm.," They're pivoting!"

"Finally!" Kinh screamed, powering up her heavy gun.

Reese slammed shut the armored slit and concentrated on her sonar and viewscreens. The shrieking cough of Kinh's plasma gun would have deafened her if not for her aural plug-ins but the results on her screen were impressive. Kinh had singled out the higher ranking Elites almost immediately and the reaction force had predictably been thrown into confusion.

"You've got more coming up behind you," Higg's said, just as the frantic chopping sound of the plasma turrets dual barrels began shaking the MPV even more than its engine.

"W-w-w-ell d-d-do s-some-t-thing!" the increased vibration made Reese stutter uncontrollably.

Reese cut to the left sharply as a Ghost made a suicidal charge for the MPV.

"I got him!" Vance called, before whooping with excitement to indicate his kill.

"Banshees!" Rogers warned.

Reese went into a frantic series of erratic movements to throw the Banshee pilots aim off while Rogers and Higg's gunner saturated the air with plasma bolts. Meanwhile, Kinh was still firing at the Ghost's, who had managed to line up for an old fashioned cavalry charge at their position. They had formed a solid wall and were returning fire en masse. The wheel's, protected by thick armor, wouldn't last long on the slagged roadway.

"Make me a hole, Kinh! NOW!" Reese bellowed, pressing the accelerator to the floor.

Kinh concentrated her fire on three Ghosts, reducing them to slag, but draining her battery pack.

"Rogers! Get your ass down!"

"Down, Reese," her gunner said a second before they collided with the still moving Ghosts.

Rapidly cooling, partially melted metal flew everywhere, leaving one Elite screaming in agony before crashing his vehicle into a sidewall. Kinh quickly reloaded as Reese spun the MPV around so quickly she could still see Vance's plasma bolts as they flashed towards the remaining Covenant cavalry. Kinh finished off the last of them quickly and Reese watched as the last Banshee burst into flames spectacularly.

"That's the last of them," Higg's said, and Reese stopped the MPV in order to let their weapons and engine cool down before they all overheated.

Higg's MPV was blackened nearly its entire length and the grille looked partially slagged.

"Higg's, you look like- break!" Reese shouted in alarm as the Banshee made a direct course for Higg's vehicle.

Higg's hit the brakes and tried to execute a 180°-spin. The Banshee hit the road too close though and the entire section of overpass collapsed. Fire and debris obscured their view for a few moments but when it cleared the MPV was gone.

"Higg's! Answer me, damnit!" Reese barked into the comm., silently willing him to answer, as her entire crew waited in silence.

Less than a minute had passed before someone coughed and then groaned quietly.

"Corporals," the Captain's voice came over the comm's, breaking the link she had opened between her and Higg's squad," Good work with the reaction force. I have another mission for you."

"Higg's is down, sir," Reese said, trying to keep her voice civil.

"KIA?" he asked dispassionately.

" I don't-" Reese began but a rough voice interrupted.

"I'm alive. We're all alive, but Kurtz and Carmna are going to need patchin'."

"Okay. See to your men, Corporal Higg's. Reese, that means you get the duty. I need you to follow these coordinates. It leads to a maintenance tunnel you can use to get to the ramp the Wraith's are dug in. I need you to take them out. We need to get our assault force into that fortified building and take it. The Covenant has major reinforcements on the way. We'll be overrun if we can't hole up while our reinforcements get up here. I'll see you in a minute, Corporal."

"I love how the higher-ups are just always so confident," Rogers said, glumly.

"Hang on, Rogers," Reese mumbled, before contacting Higg's one last time," Ditch the vehicle, Higg's, and get your people to a waypoint. You heard the Captain, we've got lots of incoming and best not to take the chance."

"Yes, momma," Higg's said before laughing.

"Shut up, Higg's."

Reese gunned the accelerator and once again barreled recklessly through the maze that was the increasingly war-torn city.


	6. VI

"Down," Kinh whispered.

Reese hunkered behind the dubious cover of a partially destroyed concrete, or whatever the equivalent was, barricade. Thunder seemed to echo in the tight confines of the tunnel and the opposite end was outlined in bright white light.

"There's a Shade emplacement ten meters from my position. One Hunter-pair at the exit, maybe twenty meters from the Shade's position. If we take out the Shade, they could take us out with one volley from their cannons."

"Rogers, Vance, hold your positions. I'm on my way, Kinh." Reese slid down to her belly and wormed her way carefully up to Kinh's position.

The team had ditched the MPV at a pick-up point half a kilometer from the tunnel's entrance. A tech team had been waiting there with a pair of rocket launchers for Reese's team as well as a dozen canister bombs. It was more than enough ordinance to deal with a couple of Wraith's. They had expected resistance in the tunnel so each of the TechCom soldiers had a fresh battery pack for their weapons as well as two spare. It unnerved Reese slightly that so far the Shade and Hunters were the only opposition they had encountered. Then again that should have been enough to hold a three-meter wide, five-meter high tunnel. Kinh had taken cover behind the barely discernible curve in the wall. Reese likewise settled in the shadows cast by a bulk of immense machinery that protruded from the wall.

"Okay, Kinh, do you think you can take out the gunner with one shot," Reese barely waited for the affirmative from the Private before continuing," On my mark. Once the Hunters are down we all double-time it to the end. You read me? "

Reese sighted on the shadow that had to be the Shade and activated her scope's zoom. The image leapt forward and then she magnified to the maximum capacity. The hunters were barely registered grayish blobs on the screen but that was enough. Reese activated the grenade launcher's trajectory indicator and designated her target with the tap of a button. The Hunters were, predictably, standing side-by-side, so her target was the left one's shield. The blast might not kill the left one but it would definitely render him incapable of combat. A ghostly targeting reticle appeared above their heads and Reese raised her weapon until the solid reticle overlaid the ghostly.

"Mark!"

Reese fired a full second before she gave the word. The grenade was still traveling through the air when the Grunt Shade-gunner had his head slagged by a plasma bolt. The Hunters were faster than Reese had given them credit for and were partially turning when the grenade hit the left one's bare shoulder. A miniature purple-white sun flared in the tunnel, making them all overt their visor-covered eyes to prevent the light enhancing properties of the visors from blinding them.

"Go!"

Reese stood and burst into a quick trot that ate up space quickly but let her keep her carbine trained on the tunnel ahead of her. She also made sure to check each of the access alcoves as she passed. There was no need to be sloppy after all. The four made it to the end of the tunnel and heard the soft rumblings of the Wraith tanks. The ramp was a winding thing that curved around an overpass aboveground. It had probably once been some kind of underground parking lot for the maintenance crews of this portion of the area. All of the overheads in this section worked, which was surprising, and they had a clear view of both tanks as they routinely changed positions after firing their main turrets.

"Reese, look," Vance said as they crouched on the floor just on the edge of the brightly lit area.

Reese looked in the direction and saw two Shade emplacements flanking a huge service bay door. A full platoon of Grunts, Jackals, and an Elite guarded the doors. It amazed Reese that they hadn't noticed the Hunters being taken out. The range was extreme for a launched grenade, maybe sixty meters, but Reese thought she could do it.

"Vance, Rogers, you take out the Wraiths. You'll need to time it so that they're both in range at the same time. Kinh, you take out the Elite. I've got the Shade's. We go on the rocket's mark."

Reese got on her side and eased her past the edge of the entryway. Kinh did the same behind her and the two picked their targets with care. Reese got trajectories on both Shade's but the computer in the scope could only handle one at a time. She would have to memorize the positions and fire by rote. She knew if she didn't do it perfectly then one of the Shade's would open fire and possibly take them all out by creating a plasma storm in the tunnel. Reese took a deep breath and slowly released it. She could do it, no problem, was what her mind kept telling her heart.

The thumping sound of the rockets being fired jarred Reese into unthinking, machine-like action. She fired her first grenade, turned and fired again, even before Kinh had gotten a chance to fire her plasma bolt. While her grenades were in the air, Reese let loose with her plasma carbine on full auto at the Covenant platoon. Kinh joined her and within seconds they were all dead or down. One rocket connected with the more vulnerable rear of a Wraith and the resultant explosion sounded spectacularly in the enclosed space. The other rocket hit the more heavily armored side and rocked the Covenant tank. Then Vance and Rogers' second volley hit the tank and detonated it. Finally, just as the Shade's were bearing onto the team's position, the grenades hit both dead-on. All that was left were the melted remains of gun emplacement and gunner.

"The ramp is clear, sir," Reese spoke into the command-link the Captain had given her.

"We're on our way," his reply came very quickly and with an air of anxiety.

"Let's secure that door," Reese said, standing up and jogging towards the door.

"Now's about the time I wish we had another plasma turret." Reese had seen that one coming.

"Shut up, Rogers."

The team had managed to haul the slagged, and still warm, remains of the Shades into some semblance of cover by the time the first of the Captain's assault force made it down the ramp. The Captain himself, a tall, stern-looking gray-haired man with one blue-grey eye came up to meet them. He looked tired but shook each of their hands in turn.

"Thanks for the quick work, Corporal. But I have another job for you," he had to speak over the sounds of several platoons of TechCom soldiers making a hardpoint of the area. "I need a team to lead the assault on this base. I'd like you and yours to be that team. Can I count on you?"

Reese nodded and slapped a fresh battery pack into her plasma carbine," Of course."


	7. VII

Reese slid along the oddly curving wall of the cylindrical chamber that was used as a Grunt barrack, plasma carbine pointed at the ground, and a detonation pack ready in her hand. The rest of her team and the platoon of TechCom soldiers that made up the assault force were waiting just outside the room. They had quickly and efficiently neutralized the entire sub-basement before moving onto sub-level one. This was where the Covenant had set up their barracks. There looked to be berths for Grunts, Jackals, Hunters and even the Elites seemed to have shared the large space. Kinh and a scout from the 126th had done a quick patrol of the room and discovered that nearly all of the enclosed barracks were occupied. Not to capacity but enough for a reinforced platoon at the least. Now Reese, Kinh, and the scout who's name Reese didn't know, were setting the last det-packs. Thankfully the brilliant spotlights the Covenant seemed to prefer at most other places were dimmed considerably in their barracks. Reese planted the det-pack and spoke over the freq the assault force was using.

"Packs ready?" she asked as she moved slowly and carefully back toward the rest of the force.

"Yes," Kinh replied.

"Yes, sir."

Reese tried to restrain a smile at the thought that she, a mere Corporal, was responsible for an entire platoon. Then she bumped into something hard and breathing. Training took over in an instant as she twisted into a turn with her carbine leading, ducking at the last instant, and planting the business end of her weapon into the abdomen of a blue-armored Elite. Without hesitation she fired a small burst directly into its sternum. The bolts exited the bastard's back in small sprays of blood and the Elite toppled backward into the side of the barracks it had emerged from.

"Double-time to the platoon." Reese spoke hurriedly into the comm. as she followed her own advice and ran back to the doors that led to the lift to sub-level two.

Reese reached the doors before either Kinh or the scout and crouched by the side of the doors. It sounded like the Elite's body had been discovered judging from the enraged roars bouncing off the walls. A pair of Jackals swiveled into view behind the running TechCom soldiers and began overloading their plasma pistols. Reese squeezed off two rounds that took the Jackals in the right and left knee respectively. The limbs weren't completely severed but they would probably never be useful again if they weren't replaced. Kinh and the scout made it through the door, Reese tapped the detonation command into her wristcom', and dived through behind them. Two men slammed the doors shut moments before detonation.

A tremendous tremor rocked the structure around them and the sounds of a thousand angry, roaring souls echoed around them. The doors, thick and solid, bulged outward suddenly with the force of the pressure wave. A few seconds later Vance and a huge soldier pulled open the doors to let the platoon surge into the room.

"That Corporal really knows how to blow shit up, doesn't she?" an unknown voice said over the comm..

"Stow it, Greffen!" one of the Sergeants snapped.

Reese entered the room at a walk and observed the carnage calmly. There was nothing left of the various barracks except crumpled, blackened structures that seemed to have been tossed against the walls by a giant, careless child.

"Kinh, lead the way!" Reese barked, taking up a position somewhere in the midst of the assault force, before switching to the command-link,"Sub-level one is secure, sir."

"Acknowledged. Defensibility?"

"Good. One lift and one emergency stairwell. Two plasma turrets could hold this place almost indefinitely."

"We're moving then. Keep pushing up, Reese."

The platoon moved through a small anteroom that housed the main lift of the building. The Covenant had destroyed the lift when they had taken up residency and the only way up was the stairwell on the lift doors left.

"Gunners, up front. No rockets, no grenades and definitely no canister bombs. You know who I'm talking to," Reese said as two soldiers spiked the doors open.

"How'd she know?" she heard one of the Privates mutter.

"Shut up, Mac," someone tried to shush their friend.

A pair of soldiers equipped with heavy plasma guns was the first to hit the stairs. They were followed by two more pairs of heavy gunners before the rest of the platoon followed. Each pair of soldiers was at least two meters behind the other just in case-

"Grenade!" someone shouted, just as a glowing plasma grenade attached itself to the helmet of one of the pair in front of Reese.

Three men were outlined in brilliant purple-white light as Covenant plasma fire struck them. They all crumpled without a sound and the loss made almost everyone hesitate. That lead to the loss of two more men, one of them a Sergeant, before the gunners shook themselves out of their shock.

"Shit! Get it- Ah!"

The man's shouts were drowned out by the cacophony of plasma fire that scoured the landing above them clean of opposition. Reese had leaped the two meters before the first volley had been fired and ripped the soldier's helmet off, snapping the breakaway loops easily, and tossing it over the side. She pushed both men back against the wall as the grenade detonated hard enough to shake the stairwell.

"Put your bandana on!" Reese yelled, as she charged past them to the landing where the door to the "ground" floor was, royally pissed off at her force's losses.

Four gunners were laying down suppressive fire into the narrow corridor but each time the fire slackened there was an immediate response from the Covenant.

"What's the sitch, Sarge!?" Reese asked a short, bull-necked Sergeant with a scarred chin.

"Those bastards are dug in! There's an equipment room ten meters down the corridor! There's at least twenty of them in there! It'll be a slaughter if we try to take them head-on!"

Reese had been thinking the same thing and looking around for inspiration when she saw a small grate about four meters off the floor. She quickly called up the schematics for this building and nodded to herself. The Corporal quickly began divesting herself of her body armor.

"What the hell are ya doin'?!" the Sergeant roared, ducking instinctively as another Covenant volley splashed the wall opposite the landing.

"I'm going to give them a little distraction. Once you hear the party start you'd better come join. Here," she grabbed the shaky looking Private that had lost his helmet," Hold this for me."

Reese handed over her plasma carbine, her body armor, and all of her secondary gear except for her wrist-comm., sidearm, plasma baton, and one grenade. That left her lightly armed and dressed in a dirty, skin-tight jumpsuit. It was not the kind of gear one wanted to square off against Covenant soldiers with.

"Vance, give me a boost!"

Vance came over to her and obligingly cupped his hands for her. Reese placed a boot in the big man's gloved hands and was immediately hoisted up. Reese pried the grate off and handed it down to a waiting Rogers.

"See you in a minute, boss," Rogers said, his face serious but a weak-hearted attempt at a grin on his face. Kinh was also at his side and looking up at the Corporal she had shortly served under.

"Of course," Reese replied with a confident grin and promptly slithered into the electrical duct.

The Captain's forces had cut the power to the entire section days ago so there was no danger of Reese being electrocuted. There was however a real concern of getting stuck. It was a tight fit, even for someone as slender as Reese, and it was the reason she had not asked an entire squad to accompany her. She would have to exit the duct fast and anyone behind her would probably be roasted when the Covenant poured fire into the enclosed space. Twenty plasma weapons would probably scour the duct clean of even the wiring.

_Twenty_, the thought had never really had time to be fully digested before she had come up with the brazen plan but now the odds of her success came back to smack her in the face.

Reese wasn't a Spartan with an augmented body and invincible armor. She wasn't even a particularly great soldier, she was good at what she did, but Reese had no delusions that she was exceptional. Reese was simply a human woman going up against vastly superior forces with grossly inadequate weaponry. She had almost no hope of succeeding.

_I guess I _really _know how Sarah Conner felt now_, that one thought was enough to strengthen her resolve but not enough to dispel the knot of fear in her stomach.

There was no one else that she thought had a hope of doing the job so it was up to her. If she died then she would never get to see her father again or complete her mission. Something seemed to click then and the world became much clearer. Her mind seemed to be much more focused than ever before and a feeling of renewal swept through her. It was at that moment that she came to her stop.

The squeal of Grunts and the deep-voiced growls of Elites sounded very close in the tunnel. It was occasionally drowned out by the thunder of TechCom plasma guns but Reese knew without a doubt that this was where she would drop-in. She carefully pried loose the grate and lay it down on the opposite side of the opening. She had a clear view of the top of an Elite's head as he barked orders at his Grunt's. The Elite's armor was carbon-scored and so were many of the Grunt's and Jackal's under his command. They had obviously come in from the recent fighting outside and that gave her some hope. Her platoon had obviously made a dent in the forces arrayed against them.

Reese thumbed the top of her plasma grenade, reached down through the grate opening, and lobbed it against the barricade that was blocking the corridor. She ducked back into the duct just as the grenade ignited spectacularly. Secondary explosions rocked the area as a Grunt's grenade bandoleer ignited as well. Reese let five seconds past before diving through the opening, abrading the skin on her back, stomach, and thighs in the process. Somehow Reese flipped in mid-air to land on her feet, perfectly balanced like a cat, right behind the Elite.

Her plasma baton was already in her hand, fully extended, and crackling with a stunning charge. Reese's movements in those next few instances were executed with a grace, speed, and strength she had never before known. She drew her sidearm in a cross-draw, squeezed the grip of her baton to activate the plasma blade, fired her DAF in single-shot ballistic mode behind the cover of the Elite's broad back, and drove her plasma blade through the Elite's kidney analogue. Reese left her plasma blade in the howling Elite's body cavity and dove to the side just as a convergent blast of plasma pistol bolts hit the dying commander. The preternaturally calm soldier rolled as she hit the ground and came up firing DAF plasma bolts on full auto as she ran to the left. Reese turned her head just as a Jackal emerged from the cover of a slagged piece of machinery and drew a bead on her with a Needler. Reaction was almost beyond Reese's control as she leapt onto the wall beside her and sprang off of it in a maneuver she would have only considered possible in wild battlefield rumors. The tracking projectiles the Needler shot bounced off the wall as she sailed through the air, firing several plasma blots into the Jackal's face. She was reloading almost before she hit the ground. Movement behind her made her spin in that direction with her DAF at the ready.

Someone whistled and whispered," She _really_ knows how to blow shit up!"

No one said anything this time as the surviving members of the platoon shuffled into the room to see the shattered remains of twenty Covenant soldiers.

Reese snapped out of whatever strange mental state she had been in and shook her head slowly as she gazed upon the carnage she had wrought.

Had she really done it?

"Sergeant-"

"Klein, sir," the Sergeant said, with newfound respect in his voice.

"Sergeant, assign two of your men to check these bodies," he immediately barked out two names," Take the rest of the platoon forward. We can't lose momentum. Where's my gear? "

The bandana-wearing Private handed Reese her body armor, weapon, and assorted gear before joining the rest of the platoon.

"Hey, boss!" Rogers waved cheerfully, before being hauled by the collar by Vance.

Vance and Kinh just offered her small nods and smiles. Reese returned the motions and quickly donned her equipment. It wasn't until she placed her helmet on that she realized how horribly vulnerable she had felt without it. It was a sobering experience and one her father had warned her about. Perry had always told her not to rely too much on all the gear because in the end it could become too much of a crutch. Reese had always scoffed to herself about the warning but now she knew how right her father could be.

In short order Reese and the two Privates, after dispatching one or two death-feigning Grunts, marched after the platoon. The sounds of short-lived firefights led them through the confusing interconnected maintenance and equipment rooms. Then quite suddenly they emerged into the main entrance to the building, which had been blasted to nothing during the initial assault. The Covenant had done a hasty but thorough job of clearing the rubble so Reese had a clear view of the area.

"Reinforcements, sir!" one of the Private's shouted as though she were blind.

Reese looked out at the multitude of MPV's, converted civilian fliers, and hundreds of TechCom soldiers moving purposefully through the area and could only bark laughter in response.

"We've still got a job to do," Reese said, contacting the Captain," Reinforcements have arrived, sir. Might I request an additional squad or two to reinforce my platoon."

"You've got it, Master Sergeant."

"Sir?"

"Battlefield promotion, Reese, get used to it."

"Yes, sir."


	8. VIII

Master Sergeant Reese made a hasty grab at the handrail as another tremor rocked the building. Her escort waited for the tremor to cease before quietly continuing on his way. Reese followed the corporal, distinctly aware that remote sensors and independently targeting plasma repeaters were closely monitoring her progress. At one hint of betrayal the corridor would become a stinking inferno of plasma death.

_The old man's really settled into the paranoid General's role, s_he thought in bemusement as they reached the bottom of the stairwell.

Reese's escort slapped his hand on an inconspicuous part of blank wall and instead of the heavy looking door to their left opening, a piece of the wall slid quietly to the side. The slender back of her guide quickly entered with Reese right behind him. A millisecond after Reese entered the door zipped back into place and nearly took a chunk of buttock with it.

"Sorry," her escort apologized sheepishly," We have to get those sensors recalibrated."

Reese nodded and followed him out of the closet-sized space into a _very_ hard-point. At least a dozen TechCom soldiers in heavy powered armor, armed with plasma cannons, stood at guarded attention behind a barricade. Spaced in their own closed off concrete circles were no less than three plasma turrets.

"Sergeant," her escort nodded to one of the TechCom "Heavies", as most light infantry referred to their heavier brethren, and got a nod in return.

"The General's expecting you," a smile, almost totally hidden by the shadows of the Sergeant's helmet, briefly bloomed," Those reinforcements have arrived."

_Reinforcements?_ Reese thought in confusion, as she was lead through the door behind the guards.

Resistance Intelligence said that TechCom's raw materials, human and otherwise, could allow the outfitting of more than a thousand soldiers a day for a very long time. With the attrition rate factored in, that gave Capital City TechCom an additional five hundred or so soldiers everyday. Unless the UNSC had managed to land thousands of Marines, their reinforcements couldn't be that overwhelming.

The room she entered was typical TechCom Command Center right down to the computers grouped in one corner of the room. Reese's eyes were immediately drawn to where her fa-, General Perry, was talking to a small group of men. One of them towered substantially over them all, even General Perry, and Reese couldn't take her eyes off him. Then she found herself staring at a faintly luminescent green chest and her gaze was drawn up to a reflective visor that revealed nothing of the person inside the armor.

It was a Spartan.

Captain Black grinned and clapped Reese on the back," Glad to have you with me on this, Master Sergeant. Captain Inman was a little pissed when I pulled rank and got you assigned to this detail. The man seems to think he's found himself some kind of goddamned talisman in you Juggernauts and Red's Ravagers."

Master Sergeant Red shrugged and shook his head but, as usual, kept his peace.

"Let me make introductions," General Perry spoke up," You know Captain Black and Master Sergeant Red. This," he pointed to a red-haired woman with a nasty scar running across her face," is Lieutenant Firn, Black's Second on this operation. Lieutenant Mack," a tall, fine-boned blonde with penetrating blue eyes," from the Office of Naval Intelligence. And last, but not least, is Master Chief Spartan-117."

Each of them in turn nodded at her and Reese even managed to return the intimidating 'stare' of the Spartan's visor.

"Now we can begin the briefing. Conner, if you will."

"Certainly, General."

A holographic projection of a series of tunnels that converged on a huge sphere that Reese could tell was truly subterranean. To even attempt to get down that far a, company would have to brave rarely maintained service tunnels, sewage treatment plants, and a number of run-down residential, commercial, and industrial districts.

"This is the site of a Covenant excavation. Sci/Tech Intelligence estimates they've been digging for nearly a week and have almost breeched the chamber. We don't have very many squads near the surface and they have been largely ineffectual in stalling the excavation. ONI wants whatever the Covenant are after and they sent Lieutenant Mack, the Master Chief and a squad of HellJumpers equipped with state-of-the-art gear. Captain Black and his men will lead the primary assault along this route," a route illuminated itself in bright white light," Master Sergeants Reese and Red will lead their platoons in secondary assaults at these two locations. We have positively identified them as temporary barracks for the Covenant forces guarding the site." Two additional routes, one green, one red, terminated at smaller nodes a level above the expansive opening. "This is a vital mission. With this artifact in TechCom's possession the Covenant will be forced to stop their pinpoint orbital bombardment and we'll be free to roam the upper levels once again. Keep that fact in mind while we hammer out the specific details. If anyone here disagrees with a plan of action don't hesitate to speak up. Now, Captain Black had an interesting proposal-"

* * *

"You wanted to see me, sir," Reese asked as she entered General Perry's temporary offices, which meant he had a makeshift desk with a portable computer terminal, and little else in what would have been a broom closet in peacetime.

" At ease, Master Sergeant," the General commanded as he leaned back slightly in his chair.

Reese, totally unaware that she had been at attention, relaxed her posture.

"I've heard great things about you, Master Sergeant," his eyes seemed to bore deep into her as his voice made her bones resonate," I just wanted to make sure you were clear about this mission. "

"Sir?"

General Perry slammed his fist down on his desk, producing an ominous cracking sound," This mission is too damned vital for me to let some fool of a soldier with delusions of heroism lead a vital element in it. "

Reese had to resist the urge to smile. She knew why he had lost his temper and he caused a burst of emotion she couldn't quite identify. Her father was obviously worried about her. The slight widening of his eyes, the subtle frown on his lips, and the slight shaking of his left hand were all signs she had long grown accustomed to. It brought back memories of the time he had thought she was having intercourse with an older man in the nearest town.

"I thought you had selected my squad _because_ of our… unconventional tactics."

The General snorted," More like suicidal. Listen, Reese, we really need whatever that artifact is. Without some kind of leverage we'll never get them to stop bombarding the upper levels. We've already lost far too many soldiers in every open level engagement. I need you to promise me you won't do anything crazy and get yourself killed."

Reese did grin then," I thought you wanted me to complete the mission."

Perry stood and growled like an angry bear," You know-"

He never got to finish his sentence because Reese had erupted into furious motion the moment he stood. Within seconds she had leapt across the desk and into his arms. The force of her leap propelled them both against the wall where they embraced fiercely.

"I missed you, Dad," she whispered, hugging him tightly.

"Missed you too, Sarah," he whispered, hugging her just as tightly.

* * *

"It's about time Reese," Sci/Tech Lieutenant Sanchez grinned as Reese jogged down the stairwell that opened up into the designated Weapons Testing Area for this base.

Master Sergeant Red, the Spartan Master Chief, Captain Black, Lieutenant Firn and Lieutenant Mack were all standing with the Sci/Tech Lieutenant in front of a series of meter thick slabs of varying composition set into floor inserts.

"Now I can demonstrate my newest goodie," Sanchez said, turning and started equipping what looked like a massive battery pack onto her back.

Once she was sure it was firmly secured she plugged it into a weapon that looked vaguely similar to a plasma rifle but the stock was nearly doubled in size. Sanchez slid her targeting lens into place and powered the device up. The woman, dwarfed by the massive amounts of equipment she now carried, knelt behind the table. She extended sniping mounts from the barrel and assumed an odd firing position with one hand on the trigger grip and the other on top of what looked like a clip insert.

"Firing," Sanchez called calmly, even though there was not a soul on the targeting range in front of her.

Sanchez depressed the trigger and a quickly fading line of reddish gas appeared in front of the rifle. Reese almost scoffed at the misfire until her eyes followed the dissipating trail of smoke and saw where it went. The gas passed through a hole the size of Reese's head in the first of the half dozen meter-thick walls.

"Go ahead. Take a look," Sanchez said.

Reese followed the others, keeping a curious eye on the Spartan's mechanically precise movement, and nodded her head in professional astonishment. The holes continued all the way to the last slab where a bulky array of equipment was emitting what looked like a force field of some kind. On the floor of the force field were the remains of what outwardly resembled a shotgun shell. But no shotgun shell glowed slightly with rapidly discharging electrical energy or had what looked like delicate electronics inside its casing.

"This," Sanchez said as they made they way back," -is an MRG-1, which stands for Mini-RailGun. This weapon accelerates a specially designed and reinforced shell at speeds relatively close to the speed of light. Penetration power at short range is, well, you saw. Once the shell's shielding system runs out of power, projections say it would after the shell travels approximately ten kilometers, it would rapidly disintegrate on impact with any surface. It can be stopped by a complex gravimetric-polarized force field but the Covie's will probably take awhile to figure that out. Any questions?"

Reese raised her hand immediately and spoke after Sanchez's quick nod," How many can I get?"


	9. IX

"Fire!" Reese ordered, watching with a vaguely disturbing joy at the half dozen streams of reddish gas that suddenly speared at a forty-five degree angle into the ceiling.

"Targets down!" Corporal Kinh had command of the Juggernauts newly formed sniper squad.

"You're up, Vance!"

An earth-shattering explosion rocked the stone around Reese's squad, Kinh's sniper squad, and Corporal Tren's Heavies.

"Detonation," Vance answered over the comm., calmly and rather unnecessarily.

"Moon, go!"

"Rockets away," came the instant reply.

Reese thumbed her detonator and fiery light blossomed at the top of a stairwell at the end of the corridor.

"Tren!" Reese shouted, surging to her feet as Tren and his five Heavie squad mates surged up the service stairwell.

Kinh's squad went next and was followed closely by Kinh's squad. Kinh and her soldiers set up a defensive perimeter at the base of the stairwell. Reese's squad continued upwards and Reese made sure she was the first through the blasted opening. The sight that greeted her was very grisly. At least ten of a mixed guard of Covenant lay on the floor, some dead, some dying. Tren and his Heavies had taken position at the only entrance to the room.

"Who's got mercy duty?!" Reese barked, calmly stepping over the twitching, groaning, stinking mess of Covenant.

"Sergeant Rogers would have loved those new guns, huh, Master Sergeant?" one of the Privates asked in as melancholy a voice as Reese had heard any of her men use.

Reese herself had to mentally bite down on the surge of grief that threatened to overwhelm her and nodded at the Private. She didn't trust herself to speak when the death of one of her closest friends and confidantes was still so fresh. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had always thought that she, Kinh, Rogers, and Vance would be around forever. Rogers buying it from something so simple and stupid as a malfunctioning flyer had brought reality crashing down on her head. Reese shook herself and remembered that dwelling on her friend wouldn't get their mission accomplished.

"All clear, Master Sergeant," Tren said as he caught up to her, " Looks like we caught them completely by surprise."

"Status?"

A brief burst of static was followed by the sounds of a firefight.

"Looks like we stirred up an anthill this time," Vance came back.

Another burst of static and then it was Moon speaking.

"How the hell did they manage to get Hunters down here?"

"You've got rockets, use them!" Reese barked, cutting off the connection.

Reese cradled her plasma carbine and nodded at Tren.

" Let's roll 'em."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, though to Reese and her platoon it had felt like an eternity, the whole of what Command had dubbed 'Beta Target' was secured. They had lost six soldiers all together and had accounted for nearly two hundred of the enemy. Not an all-together bad exchange but as no one knew how many Covenant there really were it was never really that heartening. Kinh and Tren's squads, having suffered no casualties, were hauling away the smaller Covenant bodies. No one even wanted to try to move the lone Brute, let alone the Hunter pair, and those bodies were left were they lay.

Reese and her Sergeants, reduced to two with the deaths of Newman and Rogers, were sitting against a wall in what had been the garrison commander's office.

Reese finished her ration bar and nodded," So it's decided then. I'll give Kinh and Tren field promotions to Sergeant. It would be better if I had done it at Command but there wasn't any time. "

Vance snorted," Your word's better than any fancy code from Command, Reese. It's why they never gave you or Red some greenie Lieutenant to take charge of your platoons. Lord knows there's enough of 'em being spat out of Officers Academy."

"Amen to that," Moon, a short, heavily muscled man with brown eyes, hair, and a dusky brown complexion, agreed.

Silence fell for a moment as the three took the brief respite to rest.

"Do you really think we have a chance to win, Master Sergeant?" Moon asked, as everyone always seemed to ask the TechCom veterans from Reese's world.

"Yes," Reese tried to keep from snapping at him," That ONI spook said that they've almost completely retrofitted what's left of the Fleet. And they even have half a dozen new ships almost ready to come out of the shipyards. All we have to do is hold out a little longer." Reese paused for a minute and bared her teeth in a snarl," And if we can't we'll make the Covenant know what it is to drown in their own blood."

Moon laughed," With you on our side, I don't doubt we'll accomplish that at the very least."

Reese shrugged, suddenly self-conscious," It's the platoon."

"You're the heart of the platoon. You make the Juggernauts the Juggernauts. I don't know about anyone else but everytime I just wanna lay down and quit I just look at you. You'll stand there, slapping in a fresh battery pack, looking like a dried-up piece of crap, but you'll just keep right on movin'. Maybe it's shame, maybe it's pride, but you make me get my ass up and keep moving."

Reese caught Vance nodding at the edge of her peripheral vision.

Reese laughed," Stop it you guys or my swollen head'll snap my damn neck."

The Juggernauts communications officer cautiously entered the room. His pale face was red, as it was whenever he had to talk directly to Reese, but he managed to salute her without shaking too badly.

"Sir, Master Sergeant Red has secured his objective."

Reese waited for the bad news because she knew it was coming.

"He has sustained zero losses," the awe in the Comm. Officers voice was quite clear.

Reese laughed, the knot in her stomach loosening somewhat, and wondered how Red had pulled it off.

"Any word on the primary objective?" Reese asked, stretching both arms in front of her, stifling a yawn.

"No, sir, but there should be soon. I'll get back on it now, sir."

"Thanks, Bunti," she said as the comms. Officer rushed back to the relay he had set-up.

It seemed like only a few moments before he was bursting back into the room with a panicked expression on his face.

"Sir, Captain Black wants you. I'm uploading the frequency to you now," Bunti seemed to barely stop himself from screaming.

Reese fixed him with a barely discernible frown and he seemed to settle down slightly as she patched herself into the command freq.

"This is Reese," she said after a moment of static.

What sounded like a plasma grenade ignition nearly made Reese rip her helmet off, but she held on to it.

"The mission is an abort!" came Captain Black's voice a moment later," Massive Covenant forces. We have to- Second squad, volley fire! I'm bringing my men up to your position. I've sent Sergeant Red and his men to link up. Get the welcome mat ready! Black, out!"

Reese stood and her Sergeants stood with her.

"We've got company coming. Mission's been scrubbed. Captain's on his way with a lot of Covie-flak on his tail. Sergeant Red'll be here shortly. Vance, get turret crews set up around the primary entrance. Moon, take a demo-team down to where we accessed the garrison. I want to be able to seal it up with a few tons of rock if they try to come up under us. Move it people, we probably don't have much time. "

Reese crouched behind the left barricade they had hastily erected around the main entrance to the garrison. All of the architecture this far down was the work of what the Covie's called Forerunner. She had no idea what they were but their materials were surprisingly durable for their weight. The garrison was composed of two levels. Reese had entered through the lower level and now waited at the upper. The lower level was composed of only three small rooms connected by narrow, dim corridors. The upper was more spacious but that had been filled by quarters for all of the lesser Covenant races. The primary entrance was a huge door that closed and opened very slowly. One of the soldiers, trained in advanced engineering before the war, had jury-rigged it so that it only opened wide enough to admit three men abreast. They could close the door much faster now. Reese's major concern was the path to the garrison.

The garrison was suspended nearly half a kilometer directly above where the main excavation was taking place. The Captain's men would have to cross a wide bridge, easily two hundred meters long, with a gradual incline, and totally devoid of cover. The access point Reese had used could only be reached from the upper levels through a series of cramped tunnels and crawlspaces, so there was no way the Captain could use that.

"I don't know if you're a genius or just crazy, but either way I'm glad you're here," Red's soft voice came from her left.

Reese shrugged and watched as her and Red's biggest men hauled the last piece of broken down Covenant machinery into place. Now the bridge had ample amounts of cover liberally spread throughout its length. A dozen of the new MRG's and four rocket launchers, were pointed directly at the huge tunnel that Black and his men would come down. The oblique angle would make the rocket shots tricky but the MRG's would have no problem boring through the solid rock. The entire complement of long-range, anti-armor ordinance was spread out on the wide ledge the Covenant had used to store many of their supplies.

Faint motes of purple light began to swim before her eyes as she focused on the tunnel.

"Pack it in," she spoke into the joint all-hands freq she and Red had agreed upon. " Everyone lock and load. Jackhammers, pick your targets carefully. Once the last of Captain Black's men are on the bridge I want you to all open fire even if you don't have a clear shot. Let's send these Covie bastards straight to hell."

"I'm going to go with crazy," Red said, grinning when she turned to stick her tongue out at him, before jogging away to the fallback position inside the garrison.

Reese placed her eye level with the plasma carbine's optical scope and placed its magnification setting to the highest level. The light amplification setting illuminated the darkened gloom of the tunnel so that she saw with perfect clarity the Captain and what looked like three platoons worth of men hurrying towards the bridge.

Reese activated the command link," Once you hit the barricades just kept running. We've got you covered."

For a moment there was only the sound of heavy breathing and then a terse "Roger."

"Snipers! Slow 'em down!" Reese barked and her order was immediately followed by faintly luminescent trails of red gas streaking towards the Covenant lines.

There was only a wait of maybe thirty seconds, barely enough time for the Captain's reduced company to make it ten meters up the bridge, when what looked like the Second Coming of Grunts appeared out of the tunnel. Such a barrage of plasma fire met them that a three-meter swath of the tightly packed creatures was almost instantly incinerated. Reese added her own firepower to the barrage and she found that she had been right to order everyone to fire even without a clean target. The actinic glare of the TechCom plasma weaponry was playing havoc with the rudimentary targeting computers in their visors or weapons themselves. Reese briefly caught the outline of a pair of Hunters trying to advance under the hellish fire of the defenders before four plasma turrets simultaneously targeted them. The Captain and his men were halfway to them now.

"Turret crews start packing. Heavies conserve your ammo. Reload by fire team," Reese rapid-fired her orders out as she replaced her own battery pack.

The defensive fire slackened considerably as the turret crews powered down their weapons for the retreat. Captain Black was only ten meters away from Reese when a faint purple-green shimmer from below the bridge caught her eye. She sighted on the Banshee just as it roared above the cliff.

"Banshees!" she roared at the exact instant two more crested the cliff and the first fired its fuel rod cannon directly at her.

The three-man fire team she had with her all leapt away as fast as they could. Two even abandoned their weapons in their haste to get away. Reese leapt to the left, sighted, and fired a single grenade at the offending Banshee. The range was not the best and neither was a plasma grenade the best weapon to use against Banshees. So the sight of the grenade crisping the Banshee into a twisted, melted ruin of metal was immensely gratifying. Unfortunately she had not leapt far enough and the shockwave from the FR-cannon seemed to pick her up and slam her to the ground. Then for a horrifying second she was falling before her hand seemed to clutch instinctively for the edge of the cliff. Reese had kept her grip on her plasma carbine and thus was able to return fire on the Banshee that was about to make a strafing run on her. Her fire made the pilot jink right into the path of a rocket and end his life in a pyrotechnic display that would surely please his gods.

"Where's the Sarge!?" she heard someone shout over the screams and curses of the wounded.

"She's dead man! We're screwed!" it sounded like one of the fire team men that had dropped his weapon.

"Stow that, soldier!" that was Captain Black," I'll wait until I see a body before I believe that. Sergeant Moon, organize stretchers for our casualties. The rest of you hold this line until we get our wounded evac'd. Move it people! "

Reese hung there for a second, her grip solid, and wondered why she wasn't particularly frightened anymore.

_Probably shock_, she thought before slamming her carbine wielding hand onto the cliff top.

"What the hell?" Captain Black's voice came closer just as Reese was pushing her hips passed the cliff level.

In a quick fluid motion, she swung her leg over and rolled back onto solid ground.

"Dead!" the Captain snorted, holding out a hand for her to grab.

Reese grabbed the hand and was hoisted to her feet. Only to promptly drop down into a crouch as a burst of Covenant plasma globules sailed over their heads.

"Tell me something, sir," Reese said as they joined a Heavie who was holding the left flank close to the doors," Where are the Master Chief and the HellJumpers?"

Captain Black grinned," The Chief's even crazier than you. Him and those HellJumpers say they've got a plan and that they should be here… Now, I think."

A Covenant dropship appeared before them after a minute of waiting.

"Hold your fire on the dropship!" Black ordered, pointing to the big blocky, U.N.S.C. painted on the sides.

The dropship oriented its back to the garrison and being laying down saturating plasma cannon fire. The troop compartments opened and out jumped the missing HellJumpers, some carrying the bodies of their squadmates, and a moment later the Master Chief hurled himself out.

"Come on! Move your asses inside!" Captain Black roared, waving them through the garrison blast doors.

When the last of their men had been moved inside Black and Reese went through.

"Seal it!" Reese shouted at her engineer and it closed an instant before dual fuel rod blasts hit them.

"Did you get it?" Black asked, and the Master Chief nodded.

He held out what looked like a simple, little leather pouch and opened it up for the Captain. Reese couldn't resist edging closer and grinned at the beautiful light shining out of the bag.

_Dad's gonna love this_.

* * *

The human General named Perry stood in front of an archaic looking pot of some noxious thing the humans called stew. He grinned, an obscene expression the humans seemed fond of, and tasted the stew with a large spoon.

" I think you Covenant fools have misplaced something," the General held up one of the Sacred Keys, shaped somewhat like the human spoon," It makes a handy stirrer. I think I'll pass it around our surface bases. My troops need a good meal every now and then. I think I'll even carry it myself. I doubt if any lowly, cowardly Elite, let alone Prophet, would dare brave the city to take it. Well, I'm off to make some stew. If you want it back you'll just have to say please…" the human grinned again,"To my face."

"The human mocks us, Holy One. Let me purge the city clean of their blasphemy. Give my legions the honor of serving the gods will. I beg this of you," the Elite Commander of the occupation force begged in a most unseemly manner.

The Prophet was too enraged to care.

"You will have your purge," the Prophet said, his voice seething with holy wrath," But I want this General alive so that he may feel the weight of his blasphemy. Go. By the will of the gods."

"By the will of the gods."


	10. X

Lieutenant Reese chewed on her ration bar mindlessly as what sounded like the end of days howled above her head. She and the Juggernauts had hunkered down in one of the many supply caches hidden around the City after successfully taking down a Covenant mortar emplacement. Now Lieutenant Red and his men, bolstered by an entire company of hard-boiled veterans, were gleefully rampaging through a major Covenant strongpoint. The Juggernauts had lost six soldiers in their previous engagement without replacements, though that was partially Reese's fault since she only took combat veterans, and this last engagement had cost them another seven. It was business as usual actually but Reese did not like being undermanned when all hell was breaking loose in the City.

Not even twenty-four hours after the General had broadcast, a horde of fresh, bloodthirsty Covenant troops, Intel said nearly forty percent were a mixture of Brutes and Elites, were storming down on the City. The bombardments had stopped and then the real fun had started. It had been a month since the successful raid and the Juggernauts had maybe gotten three hours of sleep a day. Even the Juggernauts, despite the stories circulating about them, couldn't operate on so little sleep. They desperately needed a well-deserved period of R&R but Command said their services were too desperately needed in this sector. It didn't make it any easier to loose soldiers she had come to know.

Bunti, hunched over because of the low ceiling of the bunker, squatted beside her. At least the man had lost his irrational fear of her.

"We've got new orders from Command, Lieutenant," he began, pausing to take a drink from his spherical canteen," They want us at these coordinates in one hour."

Reese looked at the coordinates Bunti was feeding her wrist-com and grunted. They were supposed to travel nearly two kilometers west and two level down. They would have to leave quickly if they were going to be there early in order to set up a killzone just in case.

"Thanks, B." she said, nodding as he hunched away," Moon, Vance, Kinh, Tren, we're moving out."

One hour later Reese was lying prone beneath the slab of collapsed portion of the ceiling overlooking a convergence of service tunnels. A fire team was stationed around her and the rest of her platoon were in ideal position to turn the large room into a charnel house of smoking flesh at the slightest provocation.

"We've captured a scout," Kinh's soft voice came over the comm.," He says he's with the Screaming Eagles and they're escorting General Perry. His authorization codes check out. "

"Stay in cover," Reese said, an impish grin spreading across her face," We'll surprise them."

"Roger."

Five minutes later and the General still hadn't showed up.

"How far behind were they?" Reese asked, just as a titanic explosion echoed through the confined space," Tren, form up on me! Kinh, follow behind, standard sniping pattern! Moon, Vance, stay here and get ready for a quick exit! Let's go!"

Reese was on the floor of the convergence before she finished speaking and Tren and his powered armor Heavies were there moments later. They moved out down the tunnel that Kinh indicated with a finger at a trot. Reese's mind was working quickly and analytically but her heart was beating icy tendrils of dread all over her body. Then they came to a huge gap in the tunnel that spilled into a water tunnel below them. On the other side Reese could see a squad of Covenant Brutes and a single Elite standing guard over a trio of bleeding men.

One of them was her father.

"Fire!" she roared just as Kinh shouted," Fire behind!"

There was little cover but the Juggernauts took advantage of what they could. Tren and his Heavies quickly wheeled around and switched positions with Kinh's snipers when they saw the Brutes and Elites had no interest in them. They returned a staggering amount of fire at their still hidden ambushers, probably cloaked Elites, but failed to notice that the General was being taken away.

Reese took a few steps back, ran, leapt, and barely made the four-meter gap. She fired as soon as her feet hit the ground and was about to go forward when a plasma bolt seemed to appear from nowhere and hit her directly in the sternum. Icy pain filled her abdomen and obscene laughter filled her ears but it was the look of horror and astonishment in her father's eyes that was her last vision as she fell backward through the rent in the floor.

* * *

Strange symbols, a language that she instinctively knew the meaning of, scrawled across her vision. It disoriented her, she wished it were in English, and suddenly it changed to English.

**Moderate damage to abdominal armor.**

**Re-routing repair nanytes to affected area.**

**Repair estimate: Two minutes.**

**Mission-Identity Compromised.**

**Releasing encrypted memory files.**

**Compressing mission data.**

**Searching for SkyNet CommSat. signal.**

**None found.**

**OS switching to Free Mode.**

**Repairs complete.**

**System Status: Nominal.**

For a confused moment she wondered at the things she was seeing. Were hallucinations all she had to look forward to in death? Skynet was dead and its CommSat.'s destroyed. Maybe she was dreaming.

Then the blank holes that were her memories before being found by Perry and Luna flooded with light. She knew who and what she was. She knew what her mission was and the knowledge would have overcome Sarah "Reese" Perry. The knowledge did not alter the visage of the prototype for the Terminator Omega-Series. Instead it merely took stock of the situation and began from there.

**Servomotor output maximized.**

**Internal weaponry on-line.**

**Full power scan for SkyNet Tertiary Defensive Grid.**

**Error.**

**None Found.**

**Error.**

**Error.**

**Error.**

The Prototype had not been imprinted with the code that would enable it to operate without SkyNet's guidance like those Terminators sent to the past of its alternate reality. Its A.I. functionality was severely impaired and the default Operating System crashed. The gestalt personality and intellect that had been Sarah Perry reinserted itself with the overwhelming will that her father had instilled in her almost from the beginning. She crawled her way up from electronic limbo and took a deep breath. She stopped in mid-breath with a sob as she realized she didn't need to breath. That it was just a part of her hard-code that made her emulate human biological mannerisms. Her life was a lie. _She_ was a lie. Now she knew why were father had given her that look. He must have seen the silvery, metallic shell that was covered by her poly-mimetic skin. The liquid metal, new and improved in her series, could duplicate skin, blood and even musculature, but when seared down to the endoskeleton there could be no mistaking her innards for human.

Her father would never want to see her again.

And so she did what she had done rarely in her adult life.

She cried and cried bitterly for the knowledge that her tears were not actually tears but were created by nanytes. Huge, wrenching sobs shook her body, now no more than living mercury trapped in a vaguely feminine shape. She had even been able to have sex, though not lately, the incongruity of that thought almost made her laugh.

_You'll never see your father again and he won't have the chance to decide for himself_, Luna's voice from a memory of long ago came to her unbidden.

Reese had wanted to run away to travel the world and her father had forbid it. She had only been sixteen at the time but it had seemed terribly unfair. The elder Perry had told her that if she left he would never let her set foot in their home again and he would curse her until the day he died. Reese had screamed at him and told him she didn't care what he did. Later Luna had come to her and told her that her father hadn't meant it and that if she ran away the odds were it would be a long time before she ever did see him again, if she ever did. Luna had told Reese that her father had prostate cancer and that the doctors had given him two years four years before that time. No one seemed to know what was keeping him alive. When they had come here the UNSC had had technology that completely cured him and Reese had thought they would have forever.

_I guess I'll have to make sure we do._

Reese stood, unconsciously reverting to her default appearance, and took stock of her surroundings. She had landed on a completely unnecessary stone outcropping maybe ten meters below the gap. The tunnel was cylindrical and the gap was just a hole in the curving wall above her. It was pitch-black in the tunnel but a mere thought illuminated it in a red-tinted version of night vision with data scrolling in the corner of her eye. Her camo around the waist was gone and her nanytes had absorbed the melted strips of metal for repairs. Reese had dropped her plasma carbine but she still had her DAF and several grenades. Reese grinned as knowledge continued to seep into her. She held up her hand, concentrated, and within seconds a built-in plasma gun in the 50-kilowatt range had replaced her forearm. With a wave the appendage was once again opposable.

Now the question was could she make the jump. Reese bent, flexed her knees slightly, and leapt. Her leap carried her up into the tunnel with astonishing speed and she hit her head on the ceiling with a solid thump. Before it would have made her eyes cross and her vision blur but now all that occurred was data describing that very minor damage had been done. Reese had felt the initial pain but a thought had dissipated it quickly. She truly was a revolution in Terminator technology. SkyNet would have been proud. Reese grabbed the edge of the hole as she was falling and pulled herself up. Her new strength would take some getting used to. Her servomotor output before had only been ten percent and she had been the strongest woman she knew.

Reese had a powerful built-in communications package and she used it quickly to tap into the Covenant Battle-Net. Within seconds she knew where they were taking her father and what time their evac would be. She also knew that he hadn't had the ForeRunner relic and they were pissed off to say the least. She only had twenty minutes to catch up to them.

She started running.

* * *

The Covenant SpecOps team, six Brutes and a high-ranking Elite, moved confidently out onto the landing zone they had staked out earlier.ྭ They had a screen of a dozen, down from their original twenty, cloaked Elites around their perimeter. Their LZ was even partially hidden by an overhang because they were still well below street level. There was almost no way anything could go wrong.

The moment they stepped foot on the hundred meter wide landing pad everything started to go wrong.

The transport sitting in the center exploded spectacularly. Each of the commando's sighted on the origin of the tiny rocket contrail and let loose a withering display of plasma fire. The commanding Elite began calling for the cloaked Elites to come in, pausing to cuff the prisoner for trying to escape his bonds yet again, and cursed in his native tongue as he received no answer. From out of nowhere three Covenant plasma grenades streaked and impact with deadly accuracy on the foreheads of three Brutes. Those three, knowing their fates, leapt off the edge of the landing field instead of possibly killing any of their comrades. The Elite roared his frustration and ducked as fire from one of the humans infernally effective sidearms cut two more Brutes down. Then, almost instantaneously really, a searing ball of orange-red plasma reduced the last Brute's head to stinking slag. It was then that the Elite realized the only reason he was still alive was his close proximity to the human. The Elite growled an oath and held the human to his chest by the throat. He held his plasma rifle in front of him and called for immediate evac and reinforcements.

A lone figure appeared out of the haze that was wafting over the battlefield. It was a human female, tall for her kind, but still dwarfed by the Elite. She was holding out her empty hands and slowly gesturing to her empty holsters. The Elite grinned and tightened his finger on the trigger only to be stopped by the words out of the woman's own mouth.

"Why don't we settle this in glorious personal combat?! " the female barked in his native tongue," I am the commander of the Juggernauts. I spit on your Prophets and your Gods. It will bring me honor to kill an Elite barehanded. Though I don't know how much honor I would get from a mud-sucker like you."

The Elite threw his plasma rifle and pistol to one side, the human to another, and drew his plasma sword.

"Now you die, human filth!" he roared, charging forward with a powerful lunging swing.

Then the human was there, a palm on his chest, and the other hand clenched around his too large wrist. She shouldn't have been able to exert any pressure on it but she was. The pain was unbearable and then he heard a sharp snap. He howled in agony as the plasma sword extinguished and he was hoisted into the air. His howls turned to fear as she edged him towards the open air. With one effortless toss he was gone.

So the battle went.

* * *

Reese watched the Elite fall and sighed in utter relief.

Her father was alive.

"Sarah?" came her father's voice hesitantly.

Reese turned, a grin blossoming on her face at her father's voice, and was stopped in mid-stride. Icy dread again clenched her heart, but she didn't have a heart, and she could tell her father knew it. General Perry, bloodied and bruised, held a plasma rifle on his own daughter with a dire look on his face. Gone was the distant, but loving and occasionally affectionate man who had raised her. Now he was Captain Perry and it was the Machine War. She could see it in his eyes. The madness of the Machine Wars had never really gone away. Tears rolled down her face and his face softened but she couldn't tell through the wall of tears. A cold feeling spread through Reese until she was numb inside and out. Reese walked back to the edge of the landing field.

"Go ahead," she said, trying not to sob," End it. As far as I know I'm the last Terminator. When I die, it'll really be over. I'm ready and I'm sorry. Two in the head. One won't finish me. Do it."

"Damnit, Reese!" her father roared right in her ear and she nearly leapt off the edge. Her father caught her though and whirled her back to safety before clutching her tightly and whispering," Don't be so stupid."


	11. XI

The Covenant Command Center hovered in a cloaking field of ingenious technological wizardry approximately five hundred meters above the remnants of the former command center. On the uppermost deck of the Command ship was the Prophet's Council Chambers but after the death of two of his Elite High Commanders only he and the Occupation Commander inhabited it this day. It was a large spherical chamber with observational bubbles letting in light from all directions. A dozen Brute Guards stood in mute readiness around the Council Seats. Each was heavily armored and armed with high-velocity grenade launchers as well as the more widely used plasma rifle. The Prophet hovered behind a strange construct of floating crystals and holographic displays while two meters beneath him the Elite Commander sat behind a simple crescent shaped desk. Neither the Prophet nor the Elite Commander looked at all pleased with what stood pathetically before them.

A pair of Brutes was holding the Special Operations Commander that had led the team to capture the Forerunner artifact and General Perry on his feet. One eye was swollen shut and his right hand hung limply. He shivered where he stood as the combined gazes of his superiors burned through him.

"You have failed, shamefully so, and you know the penalty for failure of this magnitude," the Occupation Commander seethed his eyes narrowed.

The SpecOps Commander nodded slowly.

"Then I have no choice but to order your immediate execution," the Prophet said, nodding to one of the Brutes," Take his head."

Then the Elite began to laugh and the Brutes holding him turned to stare in shock. Every being in the room had their full attention on the laughing Elite not because of his laughter but the sound of it.

It sounded human.

Like lightning the Brutes were slammed brutally together in a clang of heavy armor. Just as they were separating the Elite's hands flashed out in knife-edged chops that crushed both their throats. The Brutes standing guard wasted no time in opening fire but by that time the plasma grenade that had rolled unnoticed into their midst detonated. Plasma opened up a hole in their ranks that left the Prophet wide open. The Elite threw something a long spike topped by a glowing sphere of some sort faster than the eye could follow. The spiked tip planted itself directly in the Prophet's forehead and the holy Prophet died with a barely audible sigh. Ignoring the near miss of the grenades the Elite picked up the body of one of the Brutes that had been holding him, turned and ran for the nearest observational bubble. The Occupation Commander grabbed the fallen Prophet and harshly screamed for the Elite's death before noticing the blinking lights winking off around the sphere. Then he began screaming for someone to disarm the bomb before running for his life. Meanwhile the traitorous Elite hurled a shaped thermite charge, of human design no less, at the observational bubble. It detonated on contact and when the blinding flash dissipated the glass was half melted and cracked. The grenade fire had slackened considerable as half the Brutes were frantically trying to disarm the bomb. The Elite spun on the run and tossed the heavy carcass of the Brute at the weakened glass. Thermite charge damaged viewports don't so much shatter as splash, so it looked as though the Brute belly-flopped into a liquid surface of some kind.

The Brute was considerate enough to leave a nice hole for the Elite to jump through though. An astonishing transformation took place as the Elite passed through the window. His flesh shimmered with reflected light before turning into a mercurial substance that was sucked into his midsection to reveal a brief glimpse of a feminine robotic construct. Within seconds the liquid metal flowed back outward, the limbs shortened considerably, and the Elite was now a tall human with reddish-brown hair and bright green eyes.

* * *

There was no breeze.

That was the first thing Reese noticed as she made her dramatic exit from the Council Chambers. At that altitude there should have been a constant breeze but there was none. That meant that there was probably shielding of some sort in addition to the cloaking field. She had not been able to tell during her hasty transport here in the belly of a Covenant ship. There would be little time left. The countdown steadily declining in one corner of her field of vision had just passed the sixty second mark.

The Brute's body was slowly sliding down the curving hull of the ship and Reese found herself landing on its back. Sparks flew as her momentum jolted the body to a much greater speed. Reese folded her arms and rode the body as though it had never been anything more than a conveyance. Thoughts flew furiously through her mind, plans discarded within seconds and new ones taking their place just as quickly, as she slid lower and lower down the hull. Then she saw the flash of a single ship ascending from the bank of clouds that perpetually hung beneath the Command Ship. It flew through the shield, which Reese's newly awakened senses could detect faintly as this range, with daring speed. There was a hole apparently left open for transports, but against a featureless backdrop of clouds it would have been impossible for nearly any being to have a point of reference.

Reese smiled, played back the footage, and extrapolated the precise position of the portal. The countdown timer was down to thirty seconds and Reese did not hesitate in propelling herself up and away from the hull with all of her might. Her eyes flared a brilliant red as she concentrated on willing her body to perform a task its designers had never intended for it. Her back stretched out wide to either side in identical flaps of polymimetic alloy ten meters in length. With one powerful flick the flaps transformed into metallic batwings. Reese dived at the portal's position with her telemetry data the only thing between her and being fried on the shield. The countdown timer and the distance to the portal began interposing themselves with every blink.

Fifteen seconds.

Ten meters.

Ten seconds.

Five meters.

Five seconds.

Then Reese, her winds tucked behind her, blasted through the portal at nearly eighty kilometers per hour. She was within the clouds when the countdown reach zero. A lance of searing purple light suddenly filled the sky behind her for all too brief a span. Then it seemed to bulge out as though it were a snake that had just eaten a huge meal. A screeching wind buffeted Reese just before the gravitonic shockwave flung her heedlessly away. If she had needed a reminder that even though she was far stronger than she had ever hoped but still not invincible, this was a very good one. It took her far too long to regain control and by that time she was hundreds of meters closer to the City. One of the blackened hulks that used to be a magnificent tower was still standing and it was directly in her path. She threw her wings out wide and leaned back to slow herself but she was still coming in too fast. Reese extended her legs and arms out in front of her, retracting her skin to reveal the claw like digits beneath, and braced herself for the impact.

Her plan had been to hit the wall and cling there like an insect. The reality was that the wall, once incredibly strong, was as brittle as any ancient ruin. Reese broke through it as though it were mist. The impact threw off her balance so that she hit the floor hard to commence what felt like an eternity of bouncing, smashing through barriers, and indelicate poking. Finally she rolled to a stop somewhere in the center of the building where she lay on her back for a few seconds assessing her injuries.

The building was empty, its rad count still too high for prolonged exposure, and all was blessedly silent for the scant seconds Reese's diagnostic checks all came back green. Still she continued to lie there enjoying the chance to rest, something she had not gotten in the past week, something that she intellectually realized she didn't need to do but old habits were a hard thing to break. Reese had carried out her mission, despite the doubts and misgivings about who Sarah Perry was, and she deserved a few moments of reflection.

The sounds of a city-wide firefight, thunderously loud even this deep in the building, scattered any reflection. General Perry had been prepping his army with frenetic energy for the past week in preparation for the destruction of the new Command Center. He had called up all the reserves, hundreds of thousands of troops, from the heavily defended sub-levels, for a massive all-out assault on all the Covenant positions. All of their heavy armarments, including a squad of retro-fitted LongSwords and Pelican Dropships, had been brought to combat readiness. Any Covenant reinforcements would have to endure a hellish amount of anti-air defenses that had lain dormant around the city for the entire life of the conflict. Reese could not contain a wide grin. When her father decided to bring the hammer down he really brought it down. The TechCom assault would be like a Juggernaut-

Before Reese realized what she was doing she had tapped into the TechCom comm.-net and was patching into the Juggernauts command freq.

"-request immediate reinforcements! Anti-armor! We've got five hunter-killer platoons on our asses! Captain- " it was Vance's voice and he sounded desperate.

" Hold your ground, lieutenant! I'm sending two Heavy squads to your position. You'll have air support in ten minutes," Reese had no idea what Captain the high-strung voice belonged to.

"You said you were sending five Heavy squads in MPV's ten minutes ag-" Vance's voice was cut off by a burst of weapon fire followed by seconds of static.

"We need all the MPV's we have here. My company is leading the assault against the most heavily fortified Covenant base," to Reese she didn't sound as though she were in a firefight at all.

"Forget the reinforcements! We'll get out on our own! Just direct the air support to-" Vance's voice was cut off again and this time there wasn't even static.

Reese stripped the mission data from Vance's wrist-com with a thought and instantly extrapolated the quickest route to the Juggernauts position. It was obvious to Reese that this unknown Captain had used the Juggernauts as bait. Her platoon had blown the primary power source for the base someone had dubbed 'The Breaker' for all the assaults that had smashed themselves on it. But then instead of withdrawing to link up with the assault force the Captain had ordered them to rampage further into the base to destroy the AA fire control. The Juggernauts, and Reese was proud of them, had managed to do that but halfway to their link-up point they were ambushed by hunter-killer squads of red-armored Elites.

Reese raced towards a lift shaft, the doors blown off, and leapt for the emergency cables. She was sliding down almost before she had a good grip and did so with such speed that sparks flew from the cable she was holding. She swung her legs back and forward just at the right time to fling herself at a pair of intact elevator doors. Reese kicked out just at the moment of impact and the doors flew out of their tracks. The reactive force made her hit the shaft's opposite wall but she kicked off of that and leapt onto a catwalk high above a street.

The next five minutes were spent racing from one building to the next while simultaneously keeping tabs on her platoon. The situation was not well and Reese urged herself to run even faster than before. Then she was standing on a balcony looking across a three hundred meter clearing into a cordoned off landing field that was easily two hundred by two hundred meters. Her team was hunkered down under the cover of a pair of Wraiths and several of the larger, blunt nosed Covenant Dropships. Five hunter-killer squads were indeed closing in on their position behind the shields of at least ten pairs of Hunters. The MRG's were useless in this kind of massive assault. There was a high chance of killing TechCom soldiers as well as Covenant with the number of bodies above street level today so they only had rockets and heavy guns to use against the Hunters. Reese could see they had been using those weapons; four more hunter-killer teams and five pairs of Hunters were already littering the area around the Juggernauts. But they had to be running low on charge.

Reese activated her rocket launcher and allowed her auto-aim function to take over. She only had a limited payload of six mini-rockets but she would make them count. Reese designated the boldest looking Hunters as targets, fixed them on her visual display, and opened fire. Within the space of six seconds she had spent her payload but the sound of something heavy scuffing the floor behind her meant she couldn't watch the fireworks.

Reese turned with inhuman, fittingly, quickness and stepped into the cloaked Elite's swing of his plasma sword. He was now plainly visible to her in thermal mode. There was no time for toying with him so Reese quickly, almost casually, collapsed his breathing tube with a chop. The Elite had also been armed with a plasma pistol and she took that as well as his plasma sword. Five more brightly lit silhouettes dropped down into her view and each ignited a plasma sword. Reese ignited her own with a manic grin and raised her plasma pistol.

A short time later Reese, in the form of an Elite, emerged from the building covered in human and Elite blood. She stumbled around, clutching the bandoleer of grenades with one hand, and her needler with the other. A gold armored Elite flew up to her on a Ghost and demanded to know what had happened to the sentry detail.

" Slaughtered! Hundreds of humans have swarmed up from the depths! We must flee!" Reese dived forward and clutched the nose of the command Elite's vehicle.

"Back, filthy dog!" the gold Elite kicked Reese in the face before wheeling his Ghost around.

Reese sent a command to control nanytes and the response was immediate. A trio of Covenant plasma globules struck the Elite, who fell from the Ghost with boneless grace, and then the area around Reese was filled with fire pouring into the ranks of the hunter-killer teams. Reese sent a separate command to the nanytes she had implanted in the Ghost, hoping they had had enough time to embed themselves in the machine, and started running towards the hunter-killer teams. The Ghost obediently ignited its booster and streaked towards one of the hunter-killer teams where it collided spectacularly with the broad back of a Hunter. The Hunter's spine was snapped like a twig but plasma bolts unerringly struck the Ghost at that instant. The explosion cleared away the entire squad in an instant.

Reese dove behind the cover of an overturned human vehicle with an h-k squad and a Hunter pair. On either side of this team there were others awaiting orders from the ranking officer. Reese opened her mouth to speak but then the Juggernauts began opening fire. The Hunters swiveled to cover the squad's back and that was all the opportunity Reese needed. She armed, primed and tossed, three grenades in each direction in seconds. Reese did not need to look to know they had hit their targets spot on. The Elites behind her roared in shock as Reese ignited her plasma blade and sheared both Hunter's heads off. She turned to find that the Elites were only now bringing their needlers, plasma rifles, and pistols to bear. Reese shoved a plasma grenade down the closest Elite's throat, literally, and shoved him into the others. Reese somersaulted backwards and when the grenade went off it ignited the fuel inside the large truck.

Reese dropped into a crouch just as the remaining Hunter pair opened fire simultaneously with their fuel-rod cannons. A quartet of rockets leapt to meet them but the blasts were already away. Reese dived out of the way of both blasts only to find herself in the midst of a barrage from the remaining Elite's before they too were silenced by the crack of conventional sniper rifles. The damage had been done though and Reese could only lay there in the strange pain but not pain of Terminator senses as her diagnostic systems went into overdrive. She was on her back so she could see her former Sergeants surrounding her as the damage scrolled across her vision. The damage she had sustained was moderate and it would take ten minutes to repair. Her cpu also needed a diagnostic run on it, a stray shot had struck her in the head, and Reese would have to be temporarily shut down for that. If she shut down she would revert to her default appearance and they would all know.

"I say we should finish it off," Moon said vehemently.

"But why did it help us?" Kinh asked, contemplatively.

"No discussion. It's dying anyway." Vance said, his voice ringing with an authority Reese had not known he possessed.

Her hard-code gave her little choice in the matter of a necessary shut down period and Reese found herself slipping into unconsciousness. She could still hear the Sergeants voices as she slipped into darkness though.

"What the hell's it doing!?" Tren shouted.

Then the voices were silent for a long moment and the last thing Reese heard before complete unawareness took her was a glad cry from Kinh.

"It's the fucking Lieutenant!"

* * *

Consciousness came back quickly and Reese was instantly aware that she was weaponless. She quickly got into a combat crouch and saw that she was on the top of the wall that cordoned off the landing field. Lieutenants Red and Vance looked at her with bemused expressions on their faces before turning to stare up at the sky.

"Look, there's Sky-High, told you she wasn't dead!" someone from her platoon, Gianni, yelled from the far wall.

"Lieutenants," Reese asked cautiously before rising from her crouch.

"Captain," they said in unison.

"How did you know about my rank?" Reese asked, knowing only her father and Captain Black had known.

Red turned to her with a grin," After your sudden… "rebirth" we had a chat with Captain Black. He filled us in and we filled the men in."

Kinh walked passed her, cradling a sniper rifle, with a grin and a wink. Bunti came running up suddenly, but stopped as he caught sight of Reese, and his jaw dropped in astonishment. There was no fear this time but there was plenty of awe.

"Corporal!" Vance barked," Do you have something to say or did you just come to show us your best imitation of a fish?"

Bunti came back to himself and snapped to attention," Sir! Command says we have incoming! ETA: one minute!"

"Thank you, Corporal," the dismissal was plain in Vance's voice.

Reese studied her surroundings and saw that the Ravagers and the Juggernauts had taken the landing field. They seemed to be holding it but she didn't imagine it was for Covenant incoming.

"What are we standing here for?" Reese asked, " Bunti just said we have incoming! "

Red and Vance both grinned before pointing to the sky.

Reese looked up and it was her turn for her jaw to drop. Dropping from the low cloud cover that had turned the area into a gray warzone was a craft of unfamiliar design. It looked something like a wingless bee except that bees did not have plasma cannons and repeaters firing away at targets flitting all around them. The bulbous bow of the ship seemed to be composed of nothing but battery after battery of weaponry. The longer aft obviously housed the propulsion units but they were not like any propulsion system Reese had ever seen. It swivelled in the air and she saw the exhaust ports for ion thrust but they were dark. At least four meters of the aft section of the vessel crackled with strange blue-white energies. A similar spot lay under the bow as well which was probably why it seemed to wobble every so often. A quartet of Seraph fighters broke from the cloud cover on a strafing run but was immediately intercepted by what looked like Mini-LongSwords. LongSwords were huge fighters that made up for what they lacked in maneuverability with power and were usually an even match for the faster but weaker Seraphs. These new LongSwords were half the size of the old ones but the moment they opened fire on the Seraphs it was obvious that there had been a shift in power. Lines of strange crimson light tracked the Seraphs before what looked like a huge pulse of plasma was emitted from beneath the belly of each LongSword. No matter how the Seraphs dodged the LongSwords kept their crimson light shining and it seemed as though the beams themselves were guiding the plasma pulses. In moments each Seraph was a ball of fire and the LongSwords were peeling off in incredible, what looked impossible, maneuvers.

Whistling sounds brought Reese's attention back to the bee-shaped ship. The ship had never dropped within three hundred meters of the ground but it had released streaks of silver light. She watched as they impacted the ground and saw they looked like man-sized seeds. What strange world had she woken up to?

"Catch, Reese," Red said, tossing her a plasma carbine.

Reese caught it instinctively and turned to Red with wide eyes.

"You'd trust me with this," she said, feeling her eyes watering up but not caring.

Red shrugged," You've saved my life more times than I'll ever admit. Even if you are a Terminator that counts for something."

Vance laughed," I don't even know what a Terminator is but I'll follow your metallic ass any day. That's what Rogers would have said and I definitely agree."

Red nodded in the direction of the landing field," Besides, us old timers will have to get used to it. It's a strange world we've found ourselves in."

Reese looked at the landing field again and again her jaw dropped in disbelief. Emerging from the seeds were Terminators, X-Series, but they were all Terminators. Each clutched a huge plasma weapon in either hand and looked around with mechanical precision. Then they all had shifted into unique bodies and personalities began to become apparent. She saw swaggering, swearing, and even a rude gesture or two.

Red groaned," I knew it. They'll be worse than civilians."

"What are they?" Reese asked, wonder in her voice.

"A.I.'s the tech's gave bodies. Some of them are pretty old, seen the whole war, and are geared towards the military. Some are civilian. The vast majority though just got created and don't know shit from shine."

Reese laughed," Well, they can't be worse than this bunch," she nodded at Vance who shrugged in chagrin.

"There'll be consequences though, I can tell. Once we get rid of the Covenant these A.I.'s'll want a bigger part in the UNSC," Red snorted," Well, until then we've got plenty of Covie to sort out. You ready, Reese."

Reese closed her eyes and took a deep, totally indulgent, breath.

She slapped a fresh charge.

" Let's go to work. "


End file.
